[Al's Wife]

We started out this morning by getting labs done at our local oncologist's office who was supposed to fax the results to Moffitt in Tampa for the clinical trial. We of course asked for a copy of the labs. The platelets were 3,000!!!! We immediately contacted Moffitt and they said to have our local oncologist set up a transfusion ASAP. Our local oncologist's nurse said that he would not set up a transfusion, for Al just to go home, and if he started bleeding to go to the emergency room.
We called Moffitt back and they said for us to just go to the ER on our own and tell them he needed platelets. So we spent all afternoon in the ER getting labs drawn again and waiting and waiting. After about three hours the doctor came in and said that the hospital's labs came up with platelets of 13,000 and he said he believed his lab was probably more accurate because they do a lot more blood draws than the oncologist's office. So we came home without having anything done.
But in the morning we are going to Quest Labs and have labs drawn again because we need to know if there is an error somewhere and what the platelets really are.
This has been so frustrating, not to mention the stress of thinking Al's platelets had really tanked. Of course 13,000 isn't anything to get excited about, but it beats the heck out of 3,000!!!
We are seriously considering (and if it is a lab error on the part of our local oncologist's office) changing to another local doctor. We have just lost the connection with him and aren't at all happy about the treatment - or lack of treatment since we decided to go to Moffitt. They won't return phone calls, messages, etc., and now this!
We're both exhausted after such a long and stressful day.