I’d been told by urgent care that my white blood cell count was alarmingly high. That I needed to get to my nearest ER as quickly as possible. I called my mom for a ride as my husband was out of town for work. (I also called him and asked him to meet me at the hospital)
When we arrived at the ER, we found they weren’t nearly as concerned as the urgent care staff had been. I live in an endemic state, and I told them if my history of many tick bites since I moved. They slowly did various tests. Mostly in house. But a few were send outs. I have requested copies of these records, and so far have never received notes or test results that were done in house. I am able to view the labs they sent out. A western blot, an erlichia test, an ANA and a Rheumatoid factor test. All were negative except the RA, which was only a few points higher than normal range. and there was one band on my Western Blot.
They did manage to stop the vomiting after many hours and after prescribing Zofran.
They seemed to focus more on the pain in my lower back, and the high white cells than anything else. The instant dipstick tests for UTI were all negative. yet they still decided to diagnose me as simply having a kidney infection.
They gave me zofran, an antibiotic (I no longer recall which one) and sent me on my way. In fact, the doctor gave me my first case of being gaslighted. Acting as if I was ludicrous to be in the ER for this….tho urgent care had reason to send me. He even said “just a kidney infection” while nearly rolling his eyes.
I do hope that one day, I’ll get copies of those records. I would love to know if my CBC was as alarming at the ER as it had been at Urgent Care.
But hey….they were so close when they tested Lyme and ehrlichia. As ehrlichia is a cousin to anaplasmosis, which is one of the infections I had. Sad they couldn’t have been more thorough.
I had all symptoms.
I lived in an endemic are
With a known history of bites.
I had classic symptoms of multiple TBD’s.
They just didn’t bother. ..
Ticks are for the Birds 