Growing up, any day where our class had a substitute teacher was always exciting – it was a nice change of pace and usually meant a more relaxed lesson plan. Today I had a substitute doctor. It is not nearly as exciting or interesting and, to be frank, I didn’t like the concept at all. My hematologist knows my case, my condition, my past treatments, and my counts. He can easily react to anything I say or do because he knows the full story. A substitute hematologist, like the one I saw today, gets thrown my appointment at the last minute, takes five minutes to briefly scan my file, and then has to try to answer my questions and offer advice without really having the background knowledge necessary to properly do so.
Normally when my doctor is unable to keep my scheduled appointment time (such as when he went home sick a couple of weeks ago), his reception staff calls me to reschedule. Today he was called away on an emergency. Appointments were likely postponed for most of his patients, but he insisted I come in for a blood count and be seen by one of the other two doctors that works at the hematology center.
My platelets dropped from 87 to 80, but my hemoglobin was up to 13.4! The slight drop in platelets was probably due to the lower Prednisone dose, so it was nothing to be alarmed about. I see the doctor again on Tuesday, August 30th. Hopefully it’s my usual hematologist this time!