October 24, 2016

White Dog drew in a deep breath. "I wouldn't want Dr. Julia mad at ME," she said. "I bet the Emergency Hospital has learned that lesson."

This morning YoYoMa saw Dr. Julia. He has been gradually showing signs of coming back from the very bad place he was in on Friday. She had her techs draw blood to immediately do a CBC update. He was holding at 25% but his white cell count was still high. "I read over the notes they faxed but they are pretty skimpy," she said and asked us to share what we had experienced.

She began to frown when we told her that a fine set of XRays had been taken. "Wonder where those are," she rhetorically asked. And then she asked about the note concerning their thought that the blood loss was a result of a GI bleed.

"You said the XRays were clear and showed no blood or tumors." "Nope, clear and beautiful." "In order for Yo to have lost 3/4 of his blood by bleed there would have been LOTS of blood." "That was our thought as well but they seemed stuck on that." She sighed.

"What meds did they give you?" Steve responded "sucralfate and omeprazole." Those are both stomach coatings. "What did they give you for the infection?" Steve shook his head.  "That was all they gave?!" Her tone was starting to get an edge. "Was his white count high?" "A little less that the ones you just got."

"They were running some kind of special test on an extended CBC they had to send out; you probably do not have that either." "For what?" "Something about looking for viruses attaching to blood cells themselves. I am not sure. I brought our bill if it is not in their notes, maybe you could figure it our from the charges?" It was a CBC with a pathology and it was not even mentioned in the notes. "I am going to put Shana on getting the Xrays and information we are missing. They should have blood panel back."

"So I am thinking we are going to start YoYoMa on a steroidal antibiotic, metronidazole, to get the white count down. I think he is making red blood cells because he is holding his numbers but they are not rising probably because his body is fighting itself. I will look over the rest of the ER Hospital stuff and call you if we need to adjust or change anything. Bring Yo in on Friday to draw blood as a check."

We nodded and asked a few questions about the direction we were potentially heading, an auto immune disease. Satisfied we, Yo and all of us, could tame this, we headed back home.

This evening YoYoMa is already seeming more lively. Enough so to bark and twirl in the kitchen demanding Steve speed up dinner prep. Poor manners that they were, Steve was actually glad to have to say, "Yo! Calm! It is coming!"