The Loss of the Blood Sample

This will be a short post just for a bit of comic relief, I hope. 

Well, it finally happened to me too! 

I have been at this for a really long time. 40 years to be exact, this year! I should have had a party or something but I didn't. 

I have felt like a pin cushion with many doctors repeating the blood tests because they could not believe my numbers were real. I have felt like a Guinea pig trying to figure out what drugs and what diets might work for me, often with little or no results, often disappointed, especially in the beginning. Often feeling empty, because if all the science in the world fails you, what hope is there?!  

But I always manage to fight back with what I can. I always think that knowledge is power and even if I don't have all the answers, and even if there are no drugs to cure me and magically prolong my life, I at least know what I have to do: I need to know my body and my symptoms better than anyone, I need to always advocate and insist on getting tested every year to learn and know the progress of my atherosclerosis, before this disease throws me into some sort of "event" from which I may not come back ... There are ways to stay on top of this, even with bad numbers and no treatment at play ... 

I have fought with insurance companies, and bureaucrats who think they know better than medical professionals what is best for me, even when they had no medical code for my disease. 

Of course, every failure of a drug working or every encounter with a doctor who does not know their stuff and refuses to learn me as the patient with a unique history that I am, every battle lost and appealed with the insurance company is frustrating and sometimes even maddening. 

I have been embarrassed in the hospital when recovering from open-heart surgery when I could not so much as walk to the bathroom by myself and I did everything in bed ... Oh, I have many stories ... I know this disease is not for the faint of heart - and no pun is intended. 

But till this week, I have not had this happen to me ever before. I have heard of people going through this, but never me. 

They lost my blood sample! 

As every FH patient knows, the only way we know what our numbers are and what our livers are doing if we choose to be on some of the treatments that cause liver damage is with a "simple blood test" - the literature will tell you. Well, except it turns out that these blood tests are not ... so simple, after all. 

I am going through a bit of another Guinea-pig moment (for the umpteenth time in my life!)  where both my cardiologist and my PCP are playing with my drugs and every two weeks I have to go in for blood tests to see how they influence my liver numbers (which are high lately, but we're not sure why yet). So, every two weeks, I go and have a blood sample drawn to see where my liver numbers are after they have switched (added or removed) another drug in my cocktail. 

This has been my routine for the past two months (I have one more blood test later this month and then we make a decision in January about what drugs I will be on). So, this week, I went to my bi-weekly blood draw and the "regular" blood test results failed to post in MyChart the following day (which they have always done for the past 6 years since I have been seeing these doctors). 

I knew something was wrong from the minute I left the office when they drew the sample, because the phlebotomist printed the wrong labels first - they had my name on them but the wrong tests. I thought it was an easy mistake because I have several standing orders from two doctors in the computer and they are very similar. But then, she reprinted the labels and never asked me to check the information on it, like they normally do (name and date of birth). At the end, she had the label at the bottom of a tray with a bunch of throw-away junk. They usually stick the label on the bottle before I even leave to ensure I see this being done and to feel confident that the sample truly is submitted. But not this time. This time, she shooed me out the door with "have a nice day, ma'am", my sample sitting in a tray full of garbage and no label on it either ...  

I called three days later to inquire where my blood test results were. After I had to put up with abuse of the sassy and not-so-helpful receptionist who ensured me sometimes it takes longer than 72 hours for blood tests to be processed (and after I ensured her that not for this blood test!), she begrudgingly took my complaint and number down and ensured me "someone from leadership" will call me back with an answer. 

The nurse (I guess the nurses are now "leadership" too? Good for them. They deserve it!) called me to apologize and tell me they have a record of me coming in and giving the sample but the lab has no record of my blood sample ever being received. 

"We are so sorry, ma'am. Can you please come back now and give us another sample? Do you mind?"

Of course I mind but I have no other choice. So, I dropped everything at work and drove myself back to the clinic and gave another sample in my bruised right arm (the only one with the good vein). An hour and a half later, they had a fresh sample which I was hoping had better odds of reaching the lab than the first one. 

So, here I am, inaugurating another bump in the road of a perpetual patient: the loss of the blood sample. Hurray! 

I won't ask "what's next?" because I know I am asking for trouble!