DANGEROUS POISONS

DANGEROUS POISONS

Little bit concerned today with the INR. No, that isn’t some new undercover taxation squad introduced by Gordon "Tax ‘em till they bleed" Brown (he was the mildest manner'd man, that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat - Lord Byron), it’s the blood level indicator which shows how much rat poison you should be taking. Apparently the acceptable range for this test is between 2.0 and 3.0 and dosages are adjusted accordingly so that this can be achieved over a period of time. There was much clucking a couple of weeks ago when mine went up to 4.2 as it is thought to be a bad thing if your blood does not clot because if you bleed, your body can empty itself of this rather necessary fluid.

As I sat in Dracula’s castle this morning, stupidly trying to predict the eventual LED readout figure I was willing my blood to be right so that I didn’t have yet more visits if it had gone high or low. I am quite proud of my ability to do this and had decided that today I would make my blood a comfortable 2.7. Clearly my concentration level must have slipped because after they beep, the somewhat disconcerting number 6.1 appeared on the screen of the bloodometer. During their training, nurses are taught to gasp almost noiselessly but for the trained eye like mine you can look for dilation of the pupils. This is way too high and warfarin is off the menu until Friday at least when I go back for another check.

As is my practice, I starting doing a bit of research into high INR levels as soon as I got home. If you search "INR levels" on Google the first listing is a study of mortality rates and INR levels but thankfully this is for Sweden so it doesn’t apply to me. Further research indicates that this is one of those complicated fields which is full of statistical analysis i.e. it’s boring so should be left to the Wizards who enjoy reading this sort of stuff when relaxing in the evenings.

I briefly considered putting on loads of quilted skiing gear so that I could avoid bumping into sharp corners in the kitchen. Unfortunately it was 24 degrees outside so that was a non starter. Bleeding profusely would make me light headed but being too hot turns me into one of the most evil tempered bastards on earth. No brainer. I’ll just have to be careful till the all clear siren goes.