Update on Amy

As many of you remember when Amy was born she was in the hospital for 8 days with jaundice. The neonatologist wanted us to see a hematologist at 6 months for further blood testing to see if there is a blood disorder. At her 6 month visit her pediatrician gave us the referral and contact number to Children's Medical hematology department. I contacted them with the information and they said their doctor would call her doctor to discuss. After discussing her case, they decided just to do blood work through the pediatrician's office. If there were any abnormalities, then we would go to Children's. So I went to Labcorp to have Amy's blood drawn in March. They had a difficult time getting her to give her blood. They were finally able to collect enough after sticking her 3 times. Then the next week we got a call from the doctor's office, that we needed to go back to labcorp because the blood had clotted and they were unable to run the necessary tests from it. So we went back to have it drawn again. This time they had no problem getting it, and we were in and out within 5 minutes. At her 9 month visit they pricked her finger to check her iron. It was low, so he recommended that I give her some iron supplements. We did that for 2 weeks and went back to have it checked again. When I went in for the appointment, they had everything out to do a full blood test. I questioned it since they should have only needed to prick her finger. Well, the blood labcorp took the 2nd time also clotted!!! You would think they would know how to do that since they do that all day long, but apparently not!!! So, they went ahead and did the full blood test at the doctors office. Her iron count was actually lower this time than before. So he put her on a stronger dose of iron. Another part of the test also came back abnormal. Her reticulocyte count was very high. The normal range is 0.0-3.0 and hers was 7.7. A reticulocyte count is a blood test that measures how fast red blood cells called reticulocytes are made by the bone marrow and released into the blood. Reticulocytes are in the blood for about 2 days before developing into mature red blood cells. Normally, about 1% to 2% of the red blood cells in the blood are reticulocytes. The reticulocyte count rises when there is a lot of blood loss or in certain diseases in which red blood cells are destroyed prematurely. Since this was out of our pediatricians expertise he was really unable to answer any questions about possible diagnosis and treatments. So he said he would call Children's to give them the results and for another referral. Children's called me today to set up an appointment. We will go on the morning of Monday, June 8. We pray that everything will come back normal!