Expanding my Resume…Part One

Friends! I have cap­ti­vat­ing tales of fame and for­tune and fishermen!

Wait. Scratch that.

No for­tune, just fame and fishermen.

Fish­er­men??

A few weeks ago, I received a sum­mons to return to my pride land of Min­neso­ta. I mean, my gut says they just missed me…but maybe the fact that my trou­ble­mak­er mast cells have been even more out of con­trol late­ly had some­thing to do with it as well. Details.

 

In an effort to not spend the entire month of May in Min­neso­ta, my aller­gist kind­ly offered to send me some lab work to do at home and ship back, so the results were all ready to go when I arrived. How thought­ful! Sounds easy enough, right?

 

False. Wrong. Neg­a­tive. Ixnay.

 

When set­ting up the lab test­ing, I men­tioned to the tech­ni­cian that I was going to be head­ing up to Philadel­phia for appoint­ments lat­er in the week and want­ed to make sure it was ok to com­plete the test­ing when I got home to Vir­ginia again. I was assured this would not be a prob­lem and we went along our mer­ry way of dis­cussing the glo­ri­ous details of blood work and a 24 hour urine col­lec­tion (he was impressed with my knowl­edge. Puh­lease. Like this is the first time?). Every­thing was set up and the box would be shipped with every­thing I need­ed to com­plete the test­ing and send it back.

 

Fast for­ward a few days when I arrive home from the barn to find a giant brown box from the Mayo Clinic.

 

*Side­note: You know that moment when you turn the cor­ner towards home and you see a giant pack­age wait­ing on your doorstep? Your heart rate increas­es, you start smil­ing and you can hard­ly wait to see the sur­prise that has land­ed on your door? Ya know, you leap out of the car, rush to the door in anticipation.…aaaaaand then dis­cov­er it is a giant box of test tubes and a pee jug and NOT a prize box inform­ing you that you have won a pony? Yea. Been there.

 

Upon open­ing the box, I dis­cov­er a note that says, “Start test­ing imme­di­ate­ly after receiv­ing this pack­age, do not wait until next week.”

 

Stu­pen­dous.

 

I’d like to tell you that this was the first time that I have dri­ven up I‑95 with a giant jug of my urine.

It’s not.

I’d also like to tell you that this was the first time I’ve brought said jug into the Delaware rest stop with me, rinsed the attached cup at the rest stop sink and then car­ried my satchel o’urine with me to the Star­bucks to get a soy steamer.

It’s not.

 

So because I had pre­vi­ous­ly added my urine col­lect­ing skills to my resume, I was­n’t that phased by lug­ging it around and I knew the exact pro­to­col for ship­ping it back to my fan club in Minnesota.

 

I had not, how­ev­er, ever had to ship them my blood.

 

In the afore­men­tioned giant brown box, there was a small­er brown box, that con­tained a small­er sty­ro­foam box that con­tained a still small­er sty­ro­foam box full of test tubes and vials. Inside this Rubix cube of box­es were instruc­tions for the phle­botomist (per­son pok­ing my arm with nee­dles) that explained how to col­lect the blood, where to put it and how to ship it.

 

If you haven’t picked up on the pat­tern yet, I’ll help you out: if some­thing seems real­ly sim­ple, that is actu­al­ly hos­pi­tal code for extra­or­di­nar­i­ly complicated.

 

You see, you can’t just call up any lab in the Philadel­phia area and make an appoint­ment. Nor can you assume that they will have the nec­es­sary mate­ri­als to com­plete the task. The lab has to a) work with your insur­ance, b) be will­ing to work with the Mayo Clin­ic and c) have dry ice to ship the materials.

 

Allow me to share a con­ver­sa­tion with the Mayo Clin­ic Spec­i­men Office:

L- “Hi, I’m hav­ing a rather dif­fi­cult time find­ing a lab to com­plete this test­ing and in addi­tion, none of them seem to have access to dry ice. Do you have any ideas?”

MC — “Oh dear, let’s help you out with that! If you go to a hos­pi­tal, you will have more luck. Out­side labs will gen­er­al­ly turn you away, but a hos­pi­tal has to accept you.”

L — “Well I tried the hos­pi­tal where I will be tomor­row, but they don’t have dry ice, where can I find that?”

MC- “Well, where are you located?”

L — “Philadel­phia.”

MC — “Per­fect! Isn’t that on the water? Just go down to the water­front and find a fish­er­man. They always have lots of dry ice for the lobster.”

[awk­ward silence]

L — “Um…Philadelphia is on a river…we don’t have too many lobsters?”

MC- “Oh they might for the fish though!”

[awk­ward silence]

L — “Okay…let’s just assume for a sec­ond that I am unable to stand on the wharf with my sty­ro­foam box of blood and locate a fish­er­man with dry ice…what is my back-up plan?”

 

Ladies and gen­tle­men, allow me to intro­duce www.dryicedirectory.com

 

Did­n’t know it exist­ed? Nei­ther did I, but that lit­tle gift of a web­site tells you all of the loca­tions in your area for dry ice…er…more accu­rate­ly, THE loca­tion. In the city of Philadel­phia, there is one.

 

After real­iz­ing that I have to be at the lab at 7, the dry ice place opens at 9 and my next appoint­ment at the hos­pi­tal is at 9:30, it is deter­mined that my poor father will be roped into com­ing with me on this grand excur­sion, so he can run and fill the box with dry ice as soon as they open.

 

Again, seems easy…or at least, do-able, enough. Wrong.

 

We arrived at the lab around 7, I was reject­ed by the first phle­botomist around 7:45, spoke with the super­vi­sor around 8:15, who called the grand guru of the lab to look into cen­trifuge and freez­ing pro­to­col before call­ing me back at 8:45 and instruct­ing phle­botomist #2 to take my blood at 9:20, who felt it nec­es­sary to com­ment on the diminu­tive size of my veins before send­ing me on my mer­ry, sprint­ing way, to get to my appoint­ment at 9:30. Mean­while, Papa Haas has gone on a trip to South Philly with an emp­ty box in tow, hop­ing to get it back to the lab before said cen­trifug­ing vials of blood are returned to the lab and I can pick it all up after my appointments.

 

Ok, hands in on Oper­a­tion Dry Ice and we made it. Go team.

 

But, I still had to send it.

 

Now my bud­dies in the Spec­i­men Office had sent me a pre-filled out form for Fed Ex and instruct­ed me to drop the box off at a Fed Ex store or sched­ule a pick-up. Con­ve­nient­ly, there is a Fed Ex direct­ly across from the hos­pi­tal, hooray!

 

Hos­pi­tal code again? Right.

 

Did you know that satel­lite Fed Ex offices will not accept live spec­i­mens? Espe­cial­ly if said live spec­i­mens con­tain dry ice, which involves sev­er­al bio­haz­ard stick­ers and weight nota­tion. True sto­ry. Nope, those extra spe­cial pack­ages have to be sent from the Fed Ex ware­house. Ya know, the ware­house which is all the way across town, next to the recy­cling plant, in an area of town that a skin­ny white girl in a Hon­da, lug­ging around a box of pee and blood prob­a­bly should­n’t fre­quent solo. See where this is going? Yep, at the ripe old age of 30, I need­ed my father to dri­ve me, and my live spec­i­mens, to the ware­house where they could final­ly be shipped overnight to Minnesota.