Forgotten Labs

I have an appointment with my endocrinologist this Thursday. About four months ago, during an in-office appointment, she gave me some orders for lab tests. Since that was during my post-a-fib period, I was a bit distracted and buried the lab orders in a mountain of paper. Just now, I was able to find the paperwork again so I’ll need to have blood drawn after dialysis tomorrow today. Kind of ironic that I’ll get poked with another needle for blood after four hours of dialysis. Anyway, I hope the results will come out in time.

Since I don’t see my primary doctor that often, and the dialysis clinic takes blood samples for labs monthly, I haven’t had “regular” labs for a long time. In the past, results from dialysis labs have shown up in my online patient portal since they’re all part of St. Joseph hospital. This hasn’t happened lately and I’m not sure why. I’ve collected the summary results (on paper) given to my by the nutritionist:

I’m typically okay on lab results, with borderline potassium and phosphorus. It probably depends on what I eat during that month. I have an overall idea of what foods to avoid for each, but I’m not watching what I eat too closely. The high potassium is likely from getting Raising Cane’s combos what come with fries. I think the phosphorus is from cheese slices. For the past few months, I’ve been making knock-off Egg McMuffins for breakfast and including a slice of Kraft Singles. My nephrologist said to be more diligent in taking my phosphorus binders. Since it looks like a kidney transplant is likely soon, they’re not going to change anything for now.

For the endocrinologist, I think she is most concerned about the Hemoglobin A1C number. My results have been pretty good for about a year now. Normal range is under 5.7%. In April 2020, my results were 6.2%, which is pre-diabetes. The most recent results above were 5.5% and 5.2%. Too bad it’s too little too late, as the damage (chronic kidney disease and peripheral neuropathy) has occurred already.