Blood in a Baggie

Posted on April 1, 2009 by The Daring One

Sometimes the red tape involved with medical care baffles me, especially when you see more than one provider at once.

Last week, my naturopath told me I looked like crap. She said it a lot nicer than that but basically she told me she was worried about the color of my skin and wanted my iron tested. So she wrote out a requisition for me to have my blood taken at a lab about 35 minutes from my house, the closest one in the chain of labs their clinic uses. She wanted me to do it this week.

I hate having my blood taken. I have bad veins and I’m frequently stuck multiple times before any blood comes out. Now it just so happened that I had an appointment to have blood drawn at the Magical Ultrasound Clinic of Joy this week. So I asked her if I could just have the Magical Ultrasound Clinic of Joy take a little extra blood and check it for iron.

She didn’t see why not so she told me to bring the requisition to the MUCJ and ask if they’d be willing to help me out. Well I was in a hurry this morning dealing with sick kids, sick me and sick Dan and I completely spaced bringing the form.

When I showed up at the MUCJ, I asked the nurse if she’d run the extra test and she said she couldn’t do it without consent from my doctor, without the form. As she gathered the vials and needle, I started to tear up a little. Without looking up, she offered, “I could call your doctor’s office and ask them to fax over a copy of the requisition while you wait out in the lobby.”

“No. It’s okay,” I answered. “I’ve got babysitting issues. My husband’s home sick with the kids and I promised him I’d be quick and home in time to make lunch.” I’ll just drive back out to the lab another day and get it taken again.

But she wouldn’t give up. She wanted to help. “I could take the extra blood and then see if I can get them to fax in the requisition and if they do, I could run the tests. If not, I’d just toss the extra blood.”

I thanked her profusely and headed home, making a quick stop to pick something up at a nearby store while I was in the area. My cell phone rang. It was the helpful nurse from the MUCJ. She said that the naturopath’s office would only use their specific lab, a different lab than the MUCJ worked with but if the naturopath’s lab was willing to send over a courier to pick up the blood, that would work just fine.

The naturopath’s lab has one person working in the office. The same person who checks you in takes your blood. I told her that I could not imagine them using a courier service. Again I thanked her but told her I’d just have to come back again another day and do the draw again. THEN she offered to drive the blood over to the lab herself when she got off work that day. Okay. Cookies, flowers, something. This woman’s got something coming to her.

“I’m not comfortable asking you to do that, but I’m still fairly close, I could come by and get my blood and drive it over to them.”

I asked her if there was any way I could avoid paying $4 again to park in their garage for 5 minutes while I ran in to get the specimen. (I love saying and writing “specimen”. It just sounds so creepish.) She said just to pull up in the roundabout outside the office building, call the office and ask for her and she’d run it out to my car… in the pouring rain. Bless this woman!

So I called my naturopath’s office and asked them if they’d fax the form over to the lab so my blood transport wouldn’t be in vain. No. They said they couldn’t do it because my doctor wasn’t in this morning. I asked if one of the other doctors in the practice could write one up since the information was on my chart. It’s not like I was calling up out of the blue asking for a prescription for medical marijuana. I just wanted to see if my blood had enough iron. Could a test like that ever be harmful? She said she’d check. After a few minutes she came back and said one of the other doctors was willing to do it.

Then I asked her if she had the address of the local lab for me. No. She didn’t have it. Apparently they normally use the Lynnwood lab so she didn’t have access to the address I needed. I visualized her sitting at her desk with her computer hooked to the internet unwilling to google for me and then visualized the nurse at the Magical Ultrasound Clinic of Joy who was willing to look up the address and DRIVE MY BLOOD OVER TO THE LAB AFTER SHE GOT OFF WORK and I asked politely, “If you don’t have the information for the local lab, how are you going to fax the form over to them?”

She said she was planning on looking it up in a couple of minutes.

“Could I hold until you get a chance to do that?”

She said I could and in 30 seconds she had the address for me. I thanked her and apologized for causing all this trouble. “I just didn’t think it would be this hard,” I confided.

“I know. It shouldn’t be,” she conceded.

When I pulled into the roundabout at the UCJ’s office and called up for my nurse, she was down to my car within 60 seconds, a smile on her face and a baggie of blood in her hand. I believe I professed my love for her. Then I drove the 3 blocks to the lab.

When I got there, baggie of blood vials in hand, I gave the lab employee the short version of my story and asked if she’d gotten a fax from my Naturopath’s office. No. She hadn’t.

I did sort of a “follow my eyes” movement over to the fax machine. She followed my eyes and reached the 18 inches to the piece of paper lying face down on the fax machine.

“Your last name?” she asked.

“Thompson.”

“Yeah. I’ve got it.” Then she smiled and said she’d get it taken care of and I suddenly liked her a teeny bit more.

My naturopath’s office is efficient and well run. They’ve stayed open late for me more than once so I could come after Dan got home from work and taken as much time as I needed. My doctor there is one of the most patient and empathetic medical professionals I’ve ever met. Maybe their office staff was just having a rough day today. It was the contrast in the two offices that was so startling.

I don’t think anyone was being malicious or trying to give me the runaround and one person went WAY above and beyond the call of duty. I know that different doctors’ offices contract with different labs. But I still don’t understand why it had to be so hard. Why can’t every person be as helpful and kind as the MUCJ nurse? Why doesn’t everyone get it? Why can’t we all just get along? Why can I keep down a McDonald’s hamburger but not rice?

These are the questions that trouble me today.

Posted in all about me, around town, driving, health, poser in granolaville, preg-nancy | 13 Comments

It’s Not a Fever if You Don’t Take her Temperature

Posted on April 1, 2009 by The Daring One

I’m still pretty sick. Laylee’s been home sick for 3 days. Dan’s home sick. It’s not fun but everything passes, right? At Parenting today I’ve written about how I let my ick and frustration almost take over my parental decision-making skills. Pretty scary.

[Read more at Parenting.com]

Posted in near-death, parenting | Comments Off on It’s Not a Fever if You Don’t Take her Temperature

¼ Cup Pea Chopstick Challenge

Posted on March 31, 2009 by The Daring One

Laylee’s been talking smack. She’s learned how to hold a chopstick recently. Now, I’m not saying she’s learned how to hold chopsticks or even A chopstick correctly. No. Not so much. She has opposable thumbs and she can use them along with her other phalanges to keep a chopstick from falling out of her hand.

She thinks this is really something. Every once in a while, she successfully stabs something with a chopstick and manages to zip it into her mouth before it falls off. She’s even been known to use both sticks together to awkwardly pick up a lump of rice and shovel it in.

Now normally, I’d say, “Cute. She’s learning,” and I’d encourage her and try to teach her better technique ala Mr. Miyagi. But when I offered to help her, she told me she’s already too good. Yep. She informed me that she’s better than me, she’s better than Dan, she’s better than that one Chinese guy who works at your local Chinese restaurant and patiently teaches lame white people how to maneuver a pair, while laughing at them on the inside. She slaughters that guy at chopsticks.

Finally, sick of Laylee getting all up in his grill, Dan challenged her to a chopstick-off. The challenge involved ¼ cup of peas for each of them, meticulously measured by an impartial judge named Me. We set a timer. They were off.

Did she remember that Dan served a mission in China Town in New York City? Did she remember that he can speak both Cantonese and Mandarin while using those chopsticks? Did she remember that he has a will of steel and refuses to lose to anyone, a trait which I find simultaneously sexy and frustrating?

He mopped the floor with her six-year-old butt, consuming peas at a rate of 4:1. She didn’t stand a chance. It’s not that she wasn’t focused. Because she was. She didn’t look to the left or to the right. She stared at the peas and even in her pathetic loss, I felt that she was a contender. And she held her head high.

“I will win one day. When he’s old, like as old as great great great grandpa who’s dead was, like right before he died? That’s when I’ll win.”

Okay. So she’s already planning to beat down the helpless 98-year-old vegetable with a pair of chopsticks? Nice.

Posted in aspirations, contests, family fun, food, he's so fine he blows my mind, world domination | 11 Comments

Chrubol with a Capitol CH

Posted on March 29, 2009 by The Daring One

Magoo has developed a great love affair with markers. He likes to write all over his body with them but only if they are of the non-washable variety. We’ve been upping the consequences each time and at this point anyone under the age of 30 is forbidden from using non-washable markers at all.

It’s not like he draws a cute little flower on his toe, or writes his name on his bicep. No. Recently he drew multicolored tiger stripes all the way up both arms, starting at the wrists. Laylee knows the rules and she loves nothing more than to be the enforcer. For a while there, every time I would punish Magoo, she would lean in conspiratorially and loudly whisper, “MOM! I AGREE WITH YOU!”

So it didn’t surprise me the other morning when we were sitting in our living room, having a serious meeting with someone we’re hiring to do some work for our family, and Laylee came in and quietly but frantically waved this note in my face. The kids had been warned not to disturb us during this meeting but she knew something had to be done. Apparently there wasn’t time to find a piece of paper.
chrubol1

Translation: Magoo drawed on himself again now. Stop him right now. He is in TROUBLE!

Chrubol indeed. He had given himself a nose which he was quite proud of.
chrubol2
It was this deed that moved me to outlaw all un-washable markers. Hopefully when he does this in the future it will not take 4 days to wear off and on the 3rd day, his nose will not look painfully bruised. I think a man should have to earn that look with a good honest rumble.

Posted in beauty, crafty, kid stuff | 14 Comments

Googling Solutions to Cleaning Blood Stains While Teaching Preschool

Posted on March 25, 2009 by The Daring One

Do you remember a while back I wrote a post about the level of sheer carnage occurring with my brawling preschoolers? Well things have calmed down through the months. The kids have stopped the smackdown and their attention spans have stretched to include schoolish activities lasting up to 15 minutes in length as long as the mother who’s teaching does a pretty elaborate song and dance routine to keep them engaged. It’s been going pretty well.

There are six moms in my group and we all take turns teaching our group of 3-year-olds from a purchased curriculum, complete with activities and pre-cut craft projects. Then we get 5 weeks off to run errands, go to doctors’ appointments or simply lay around the house bonding with our much loved inter-uterine parasite.

This morning the kids arrived at my house and I was optimistic. I was ready. I’d even vacuumed the floor and laid out all the supplies.

Over the last few days Laylee and Magoo have set up a spaceship playhouse under the stairs, under the staircase with the 8-inch wooden beam along the outside of it. It’s a cramped space and they’ve pushed the couch up against the opening so there’s only the teeniest space for them to climb in and out of their hideout. I decided to let them leave it up for a few days and the preschoolers were thrilled.

15 minutes into the playdate, one sweet teeny 3-year-old smashed her nose at full speed into the wooden beam while jumping around inside the spaceship. Blood was EVERYWHERE. The poor kid was in pain and completely traumatized by the red dribbling all down her clothes, the couch and smeared all over her face. I ran her into the kitchen where I sat on the floor, holding her and sent Magoo to get a full roll of toilet paper and my cell phone.

The bleeding was intense for someone so tiny and in a soft voice she kept saying, “I want my mom.” But her mom was unreachable and I was the next best thing.

While I tried to stop the gushing, the other kids ran around like total insane sun-starved maniacs from the rainy northwest who CANNOT HANDLE ONE MORE DAY TRAPPED INSIDE. They were squawking, sword-fighting and hitting the walls, the furniture and each other with various objects.

Then another one started screaming. Poor little S-Dawg with the cast on his arm and the brand new baby brother at home had smashed the back of his head on the wooden beam and was howling in pain. All the other kids came running. “S-DAWG SMACKED HIS HEAD.”

One of my most basic parenting instincts kicked in and I decided that hemorrhaging trumps concussion so I called out comforting words to the poor little guy while rocking the bleeder and changing her compresses. Meanwhile the other children, forgetting their fallen friends, went all Lord of the Flies again.

Eventually I got her cleaned up and convinced her to change into some of Laylee’s clothes. She insisted that the shirt be pretty enough or she’d remain happily in her gore. If she were 3 years older, she’d be Laylee’s very best friend.

I dealt with Head Wound Boy, outlawed the space ships, outlawed the swords and light sabers and got everyone to chill while I googled “how to remove blood from upholstery” and followed the listed instructions.

We started preschool over an hour late today but all the children were alive or at least clinging to life when they left my house. That is my story.

Posted in disasters, education, near-death, save me from myself | 16 Comments

Calling All Sports Fans

Posted on March 25, 2009 by The Daring One

Do your kids participate in competitive sports? How in the world do you cope with it. Recent experience has shown me that I can. not. handle the pressure of watching my loved ones play in sporting events where there’s a chance they might lose. I’ve written about it at Parenting and I’d love for you to come and share your experience, stories or possible advice. Because I need to chill way the heck out.

[read more at Parenting.com]

Posted in parenting, save me from myself | 4 Comments