Lesson to be learned about blood tests

Good morning,

Alot of the postings reference the results from a single blood test: ie, my alk. phos. is up, etc.

I know that I watch blood results like a hawk, have our onc trained, (I often get the results before he does); and when I get them I go into this deep-analytical zone.

Here's what I have learned:

1. be suspect of any result with 10% of the "normal range

2. different labs have different ranges of "normal"

3. much of this is due to exteranal factors (such as a glass of wine, neupogen, etc.)

4. labs do make mistakes; see Jamie's post: http://www.her2support.org/forums/in...howtopic=22231

5. we should look for patterns in results

Knowing all that, I am starting to control my panic response, albeit just barely.

Al