Blood work results: what should I look for?

I just left my doctor’s office with a referral for some lab work, but since the clinic was already closed for the day, I won't be able to drop off the paperwork until the day after tomorrow.
In the meantime, I am looking for some clarity on what exactly this means:

Referral Diagnosis: Z13.86
Specialized screening - evaluation for endocrine and metabolic disorders

Please request:
CBC, Lipid Panel, Glucose

The reason I'm heading in for these tests is that I've never had them done before, and given that my father was diabetic, I want to see if I've inherited that predisposition. Furthermore, I have dropped about 20 pounds over the last month and a half.
I am particularly interested in knowing what that bolded section implies, especially since the doctor gave me a rather telling nod when I mentioned the weight loss.

Best,

The admission diagnosis is just an ICD code—that’s the medical classification system we use here—and honestly, it's really just the "reason" your doctor is sending you in, which in your specific case seems to be screening. So, I suppose it's pretty much irrelevant. For what it's worth, the code is Z13.8 (or maybe 6)

CBC is just short for a Complete Blood Count. It basically involves analyzing both the plasma and the cellular components of your blood.
It'll list things like your hematocrit, red blood cells, white blood cells, neutrophils... essentially all the standard cells you'd expect to find in a healthy bloodstream.

ESR is likely the Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate; it serves as an indirect indicator of inflammation. It's a cheap test that can actually reveal quite a bit, though generally, it just points toward some kind of underlying issue without specifying exactly what it is... so the actual value is what matters most.

And finally, glucose is just your blood sugar level. They're going to measure the sugar in your blood.

Now, I don't know how much this actually helps you, but these are all pretty standard tests that I guess almost every person in America has had done at least a few times—certainly retirees do at least once a year 🙂. On their own, they can tell you a lot, but they certainly don't rule out the possibility that someone might still be suffering from something. In any case, these tests are a decent starting point.

Thanks for clearing that up!

I’ll just drop this here to avoid cluttering the boards with a new thread.
My lab results finally arrived, and for the most part, everything looks fine—falling right within the "Patient limits set 1" parameters—with these two exceptions:

NEU 40.9 %N Normal range: 44.0 - 72.0 %N
MCV 81.1 fL Normal range: 83.0 - 97.0

I don't have my follow-up appointment scheduled with my doctor until Monday, but I am far too impatient to wait that long; does anyone know what it actually means when these two specific markers fall outside the standard range?