anyone been to a hematologist?

acesup

I have to take DD to a hematologist because her WBC came back high on two separate labs. I have to call Monday to make the appt. Has anyone ever been? Can you tell me what to expect? Will they do more bloodwork? Will I get some answers that day or will there be testing with a follow-up visit? Please tell me your experiences. 

I am very stressed and worried by this and I am also having a scheduled C-section to deliver my 2nd child in 3 weeks. I am hoping to get into the hematologist before that. I am so worried about her that a long wait might kill me.  

TIA 

RondackHiker

DH says that depends on the labs. If it's a simple smear, they will run it right then. Some labs take a day. A lab that involves looking for specialized markers will take a week.

I'm sorry you're dealing with this, but DH said that there are a lot of not scary and not serious reasons for this.

acesup

Thank you guys. Yes they told me who to call, it is a satellite office of one if the best children's hospitals around so I am pleased. I am familiar as well bc my sister went there when she had cancer as a child been in a remission over 20 years.

I am planning to play the "I'm about to have a baby card" in the hopes of getting in quickly. It sucks too because its about an hour and fifteen minutes away and in the opposite direction of the hospital ill be delivering at. So if I were to go into labor we would be in trouble.

acesup

Igoo0304:

DS has a form of primary autoimmune neutropenia. He used to see a hematologist every two weeks, then for a while it was monthly, and now he's tapered down to every 46 months as long as he's healthy. This has been our experience in two different hospitals:I actually prefer to have DS see his specialists over his regular pedi. The offices were super calm and quiet because they were combined with oncology this is really common so they try to keep as few kids in the waiting room at any given time as possible. It's also always very clean, and I'm a germaphobe, so there's that. It's also much less structured than a regular pedi office. His hematologist always plays with him for a little while before any procedures, and no staff has ever cared about tantrums, etc.Usually for an appt, we check in, go to a room to get height and weight, then go straight back to an exam room. We see a nurse for a quick exam, then the doctor comes in, plays and talks with DS, then does a more thorough exam. We usually bring a stuffie or doll, and the doctor "examines" the toy first. The doctor leaves the room for blood draws so DS doesn't associate her with needles. The nurses who do the blood draws rotate so DS doesn't become afraid of anyone.They probably will draw her blood again to establish their own baseline sometimes values can vary between labs, but IME, in the hematology clinic it's much less traumatic because they have a specialized team for blood draws. They will probably offer numbing cream or spray. Personally, we don't use them because the cream can make the veins harder to find, and DS has terrible veins.,and DS says the spray hurts. We've also always had a child life specialist or play therapist come hang out with him during anything traumatic. We usually bribe DS with candy or a toy during the appointment.nbsp;Usually we get results by phone the day after the appointment. If there's something that needs to be addressed, we have a followup in the next day or two. When he was still in the diagnostic phase, we spent a lot more time hanging out in the clinic waiting for results because sometimes there would be followup testing. Sometimes appointments last 10 minutes, a few times we were there for hours.nbsp;

Thank you for this

Mrs.Rose

I am really late to this post - but DS2 used to see a hematologist.  He was cleared from hematology pretty quickly, but we had to follow up for a bit after his birth because he was born with a complete blood clot in his arm and also had a bleed in his brain.  We only had to go to 3 appointments.  The first doctor we saw was actually kind of a jerk, so insisted on the other doctor after that.  As for the staff, they were really great.  They had a blood draw "team" and they were fabulous.  There were no rookies drawing blood there.  Our appointments were usually discussing previous labs (or NICU labs) and then I would get a call a few days later about the new labs.  

I hope everything turns out well.  Good luck!