Day 263 - My Blood

I really need to type up a long update about my health and my conversation with my doctor last week, but I'm just not up for it tonight.

But I did want to go ahead and post this picture - in case any of my medical friends might have an idea.....

I had some spontaneous bruising happen two Sundays ago.  I basically got a hickie from my bra strap.  I'm far from a large busted girl, so there is no reason for my bra strap to be causing bruising.  

Worried, I had one my vet tech's draw my blood and do a blood smear to see if my platelet count was ok.  My PCV was normal (my percent of red blood cells in my blood volume) and my platelets were like 30/hpf (dogs are usually good at 10/hpf) - so I assumed that was normal.  The plan was to talk to my doctor on that day, so I wanted to have some data to give him.

As I was looking at the monolayer of the smear, my RBCs had considerable central pallor, which is normal for human cells.  But as I went to the feathered edge, most of my cells lost their central pallor and looked more like reticulocytes.  Odd.  

But what has me perplexed are cells you see in the picture.  In four separate areas on the feathered edge I would see a mass of non-central pallored RBCs and then an Eosinophil with 3 or 4 RBCs around it with off center areas of luceny.  If I had only seen one, I would have disregarded it.  But I distinctly saw four.  There may have been more - I did not explore the entire feathered edge.  

The picture was taken with my little point and shoot camera looking through the eyepiece of the microscope - so there is lots of artifact in the pic.   The color is also a bit funky - but I assure you that is an Eosinophil. 

Do any of you medical folks think that could be a yeast?  It's not taking up stain like Babesia....

My doc thinks it could be Bartonella - but it doesn't look classic to him.  

Thoughts?