EAST LANSING, MI – Local patient Sheryl Harris came to clinic today with a chief complaint of “I need all my labs drawn.”
When questioned what specific labs she was referring to, she responded, “All of them.”
Dr. Frans questioned her further: “What is going on that you think you need all your labs checked?”
Ms. Harris is typically very healthy and on no medications, although she still believes she is hypothyroid because she is always tired and can’t lose weight despite making diet modifications and decreasing trips to the refrigerator. “Nothing specifically, but how will I know nothing is wrong if you don’t check all my labs?”
Logic, her persistence, and the hospital’s new “Patient-Centered Care” slogan, defeated common sense and 15 years of medical experience, so two liters of blood were removed to fill all 643 test tubes. Luckily most of the results came back normal, but Cheryl would have to wait for six months until all the send out labs came back, including a full DNA sequencing costing $250,000.
Seven-million dollars later her results came back. “Nurse Shannon clear my schedule! Cheryl’s labs are back and I need a couple weeks to go over them with her,” Dr. Frans excitingly stated as he got off the phone with the lab. He then went over her entire genome the first week and had her return to discuss rare peptide disorders the next week.
Besides turning out to be heterozygous for a couple of minor diseases, no new information was discovered. Once again she was found to be euthyroid and to have a completely normal CBC, except for a mild anemia likely due to the blood draw.
“That’s a relief,” Sheryl said with a sigh. “I should probably get a full-body scan just to be sure. Oh and I have a cold, I’ll need some antibiotics to calm it down.”
