Tuesday, July 05, 2011

The weirdest thing about this surgery bidness?

Is this: Dr. Crane didn't type and cross me prior to removing El Lumpacito, because there was little chance of his running into any major vessels during surgery. Dr. T decided to do a T&C because, as she put it, there's a lot of *stuff* in the belly, and better safe than sorry.

So, when the type & cross results came up in my email, I opened them expecting to see a blood type of O-positive, which is what I'd always thought I was.

I'm A-positive. Without, as it turns out, antigens to anything. Given that I've never had a transplant or a transfusion of any sort, that wasn't a surprise. The A+ part was, though.

I had to check in the mirror to make sure my eyes are actually blue.

8 comments:

Sacha said...

Lol Ive totally had that too. Always thought I was O neg than gave blood and found I was A neg! Total surprise ae

Brian said...

If you've never been tested, why did you assume O+? I know it's the most common but it's still only 35% of people.

Rosanna said...

*WARM BE*----(the thoughts, the concern, the worry, the prayers, and)----*THE LOVE THAT S.U.R.R.O.U.N.D.S. YOU*, Jo ............ from all of you devoted Blog readers and friends, during your surgery this coming Thursday (July 7th); and also postoperatively during your recovery.

We all not only care about.... "Nurse Jo".... and "Blogger Jo".... but we also simply care about.... "Jo", too, you know.

(My good, kind husband says that if he could, he'd "just go ahead and send you 'Some Flowers' after you get out of surgery", as he's actually done for me, postoperatively, in the past; so I'll just help him do a *Virtual* Kind Of Floral Bouquet instead, and he'll be perfectly fine with that!!)

Jo said...

Ninja: I think Mom told me I was O pos at some point. My sister is; maybe she got us mixed up.

jo said...

Your blood group is determined within the first 2 years of life as a baby's gut is exposed to different antigens, the pos or neg is inherited from parental genes. All babies look like O at birth but many will be something different on later testing. Good luck with your op, Another Nurse Jo

Jo said...

Nurse Jo, thank you! I didn't know any of that, except the Rh inheritance.

messymimi said...

Better to learn when it's not an emergency.

Maybe i should have my one oddball son retested.

birdergirl said...

I must respond to 4:39 AM post re: babies blood groups. I am a clinical laboratory scientist with a specialist in blood banking certification. I have typed thousands of babies. ABO blood group antigen are well defined at birth. Newborns have all blood types: A, B, O, and AB. In fact, the most common form of hemolytic disease of the newborn is when the mother is group O and the baby is group A or B. What is different about newborns is the diminished presence of antibodies to the A and B antigens. At birth, newborns have the A and/or B antibodies of their mothers. They do not develop their own A and/or B antibodies until 3 - 6 months of age. As a review, ABO blood groups are determined by the presence or absence of the A and B antigens: Group A people have A antigen; group B people have B antigen; group AB people have both A and B antigens; group O people have neither A or B antigens. What is unique about the ABO blood group system is that for whatever antigen you lack, you develop the corresponding antibody: group A people have anti-B, group B people have anti-A, group O people have anti-A and anti-B, and AB people have no anti-A or anti-B. The presence of these antibodies is what can kill people if they receive an different blood type in a transfusion. For example, if a group O person receives a group A blood transfusion, their anti-A antibody will seek out the A antigen on the transfused blood and will destroy the cells. This destruction can have catastrophic results. More than any of you wanted to know, I bet!