Frustrating morning at the lab.

SeaSoul · February 2011

Cal had labs done today for tests his hematologist is running to diagnose what she believes to be a blood clotting disorder.

We went to the coagulation lab. Checked in. Waited a while. Then 2 phlebotomists came out and brought me in for an interview - asking lots of questions about bleeding history - both his and the family's. Was a little surprised, since we already went over this with his dr. At the end, I asked if they were going to weigh him to determine how much blood they could take, since they hadn't brought it up yet (his dr. had said they would only take as much as was safe for his size - in fact, at one point she even told me they wouldn't do these tests at his age (due to the volume of blood needed for the tests), but that was before the last lab tests came back, which necessitated these.)

The phlebotomist seemed confused. I told her the background...and told her that when he had labs done 3 weeks ago (at a sister lab - different location), they calculated the amount of blood to draw right there. She said, "the lab did the calculations, not the hematologist?" I told her yup...the hematologist gave us the lab slip, we walked down the hall to the lab. When I brought up the slip, they asked how much he weighed, she took out a calculator, and wrote a number on the lab slip with the max amount of blood they could take.

Apparently this lab is used to that info coming from the dr. directly. So, they had to call (um - thank goodness I said something?!). And Cal's dr. wasn't in today. So they had to talk to a colleague of hers. Meanwhile, DH & I are kind of freaked out that everyone seems confused and we are talking about a little boy here...let's get this RIGHT, people! Talk about disconcerting. Anyway, the colleague is the head hematologist at the practice, and he told the phlebotomist how much they could safely take for his weight (based on what I told them he weighed), which they said should be enough for the tests. If not, we'll have to go back in.

Ugh. Anyway, the rest of a piece of cake...they took 6 vials but Cal didn't flinch. Tough guy. Cool