So after falling asleep in the patient room, I get woken up to an apology from the doc. The lab techs/ nurses are R'Tarded as I like to call it and for some reason failed to draw blood for ALL the tests. They pulled the two special ones that required me to come in on a certain day of the week.
Anyways we spoke about the two tests she took and they are looking promising. One is called the Jack test. It looks for a gene mutation and research has found that statistically 87% of those that test positive for the mutation have a blood disorder. This test was negative for me - so that's looking good.
We also talked about what research I have done about this. I stuck to the "good" sites like John Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic. But they had conflicting information about PV turning into acute leukemia. One site blames it on certain drugs being used, the other says that its really rare to turn into leukemia at all. Doc 2 here follows the theory that if you have a blood disorder your marrow is "malignant" or broken to begin with or it would function properly. Therefore the risk of a secondary illness is there and shouldn't be discounted. She also believes in starting at the lowest level of treatment first BEFORE pulling out the big guns or using drugs. So at least I know I'm not going to get pumped full of drugs any time soon.
Anyways so another 2 weeks I get to wait for the remaining tests. Although the Jack test is really helpful, and I don't relish the idea of someone sticking a long hollow rod into my hipbone, I would like to discuss with here exactly how conclusive this test is to see if having a final answer is worth the pain.
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