Recursive Excel Spreadsheet Input to Applescript iMessage/SMS Messaging - excel

Question

Ok, first time playing with Applescript today and after 6-7 hours am 'almost' there. Basic premise of this script is that it should read two columns of data out of an Excel spreadsheet, one column is the phone number, the other is an alert. It then writes the message into iMessage/SMS and delivers it.
I have it working off of a CSV well, and now trying to use the source Excel file to bypass the conversion step. I am running into a classic number formatting issue where it reads the number into scientific notation and disrupts the phone number. On converting it back to a normal string iMessage seems to choke on the formatting. (at this point I know its something simple I am missing.)
set phoneCol to "O"
set messageCol to "P"
set startRow to 3
set endRow to 5
set xlsFilePath to (path to desktop as text) & "test.xlsx"
tell application "Microsoft Excel" to open file xlsFilePath
repeat with thisRow from startRow to endRow
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
set targetBuddyPhone to value of cell (phoneCol & thisRow) as string
set targetMessage to value of cell (messageCol & thisRow) as string
end tell
set targetBuddyPhone to number_to_string(targetBuddyPhone)
tell application "Messages"
send targetMessage to buddy targetBuddyPhone of service "SMS"
end tell
delay 2
end repeat
on number_to_string(this_number)
set this_number to this_number as string
if this_number contains "E+" then
set x to the offset of "." in this_number
set y to the offset of "+" in this_number
set z to the offset of "E" in this_number
set the decimal_adjust to characters (y - (length of this_number)) thru ¬
-1 of this_number as string as number
if x is not 0 then
set the first_part to characters 1 thru (x - 1) of this_number as string
else
set the first_part to ""
end if
set the second_part to characters (x + 1) thru (z - 1) of this_number as string
set the converted_number to the first_part
repeat with i from 1 to the decimal_adjust
try
set the converted_number to ¬
the converted_number & character i of the second_part
on error
set the converted_number to the converted_number & "0"
end try
end repeat
return the converted_number
else
return this_number
end if
end number_to_string
by contrast the following scrip to read the same variables from a CSV works with no issues at all, I did need to put a small delay in or I overran the buffer in iMessage.
set theFile to (choose file with prompt "Select the CSV file")
-- read the file contents:
set f to read theFile
-- break the file into paragraphs (c.f. rows)
repeat with row in (paragraphs of f)
-- parse the row into comma-delimited fields
set fields to parseCSV(row as text)
-- now you have your data:
set targetBuddyPhone to item 1 of fields
set targetMessage to item 2 of fields
tell application "Messages"
send targetMessage to buddy targetBuddyPhone of service "SMS"
end tell
delay 2
end repeat
on parseCSV(theText)
set {od, my text item delimiters} to {my text item delimiters, ","}
set parsedText to text items of theText
set my text item delimiters to od
return parsedText
end parseCSV