Wednesday, July 02, 2003

I visited a vampire today. I underwent a new round of bloodtests that required, ten, count 'em, ten vials of blood. Geez... I've been having issues lately, so my potential new GP (I think I like him, but I'm hedging my bets - I've been very dissapointed on the doc front several times in the past) ordered up a bunch of tests which included: The usual cast of characters including Sed Rate, THS (thyroid), hematocrit, etc. NK function. NK stands for Natural Killer cells. I'm not sure about this test. It's an immune function test. However, when I do a Google on it, all sorts of alternative medicine sites come up. Hmmm...Danger Will Robinson. Danger. Danger. ACTH Stimulation Test (a Cortisol/Arenal function test). This one was certainly the most entertaining. A baseline blood sample was taken at the lab. I then drove to my doctor's office where he injected me with ACTH in order to challenge my adrenal gland. I then drove back to the lab where after an hour, they took another blood draw (the tenth and final vial). What was interesting is that supposedly, I should have not experienced any noticeable side effects from the ACTH shot. But two minutes after the injection, I experienced the most bizarre three dimensional nerve like sensation in my abdominal area. I had never felt anything like it before and it took my breath away. I really have no adjectives that can describe it. It settled down pretty quickly. But the sensation didn't completely quit until about three hours after the injection. The test results should be back sometime next week. I have to say that after today's vampiric drain, I'm sure I'm even paler than normal. 9:38:47 PM    comment []

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