Worried about my husband - elevated WBC

[rybrans07]

My husband recently went to the doc for bone pain, fatigue, weight loss.  The doc ran some blood, checked for lymes which was negative.  His WBC is 14.0 and his ANC is 11.2.  My husband is only 37 but a heavy smoker with a strong family history of lung cancer - Father died at age 60 and both paternal and maternal grandfathers died before age 62 - all lung cancer.  My husband has had a cough for years and several years ago was told he had COPD.  I'm worried the doc wants to wait a month to re-test, but that seems to long for me?  Any suggestions or thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks, Kim

[RMBC]

There is a lot of blood test they could have done to narrow this down, they do not need to wait to do those,   Does he have any bruising?

[suzzie61]

Hi Kim:  I can totally understand your concern, especially with your husband being so young.  You said they did some blood work on him, but with the family history and knowing he has COPD they should have done a chest x-ray to evaluate the cough.
     I am not a doctor, but I do not think 4 weeks to rerun the tests is bad.  If the numbers have gone up then he needs a further work-up.  I assume he just saw his primary doctor, and if thats the case and his next test shows anything abnormal I am sure he will refer him to whatever specialist he needs.
    If you see him getting worse, then do not wait to get him further testing but demand it to be done sooner.