Word: hemoglobin
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...every standard medical and logical, Henry Jackson, lying unconscious in a New Jersey hospital on his 32nd birthday, was finished. Massive internal hemorrhaging had drained him of 90% of his blood. His level of hemoglobin--the vital, oxygen-carrying compound in his red cells--had plummeted from a normal reading of 13 to an ominous 1.7, a number that one of his doctors characterized as "incompatible with survival." A blood transfusion could save him, but his wife, torn between her husband's life and their beliefs as Jehovah's Witnesses--a religious community that prohibits transfusions because of biblical references...
...Shander most is how blood has become a convenient tool for his fellow anesthesiologists, and how it is sometimes used cavalierly when it need not be given at all. According to some estimates, 25% of U.S. transfusions are unnecessary. There are also indications that patients cannot tolerate levels of hemoglobin as high as previously thought and that young people especially have a built-in reserve of blood. These findings, Shander believes, support the need for a more sparing use of blood products. As one of the directors of the Englewood institute, he is convinced that withholding blood is a viable...
...techniques as radiosurgery, virtually no surgery is completely bloodless. The blood that is shed during operations at places like Englewood may be suctioned out by cell-saving machinery, cleaned and then returned to the patient's body. Red blood cells can also be saved through hemodilution. In this procedure, hemoglobin-rich blood is pumped unit by unit from a vein and replaced by an equal number of units of a nonblood fluid to expand the volume to normal; the patient's own drawn blood is held for use after surgery. In another technique, doctors may use albumin, a protein found...
...look at modern biochemistry textbooks, there is a transformation," Huber said. "[Today], you find pictures of proteins on every page, while ten years ago, there were only a few hemoglobin structures...
...Then he went to the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, New Jersey, where his therapy began. "I still had an infection in my lungs," he says. "I couldn't eat very much. I'd lost a lot of weight. I dropped from 215 to about 190. My hemoglobin, which should be around 13 or 14, was down to 9. My protein levels were low. I looked gaunt. I was too fragile for rehab...