Okay, I need to be set firmly back on the handle that I am just about to FLY off of right now and I'm hoping that you good folks can help me.
I went in last Wednesday for a blood test to have my thyroid levels checked. I have a hypoactive thyroid and, like a car with a leaky oil pan, it needs to have its dipstick checked so my thyroid medication tops off the tank properly. I figured I'd have my results by Friday, but have heard nothing, so I called today.
The nurse tells me some blah-blah about my triglyceride levels and my low HDL cholesterol levels (171 and 36, respectively). I tell her, "There must be some mistake; I didn't have a lipo panel done, I had a TSH test done." She replies, "Well, I don't see those results yet, so they must not have come in."
At this point I'm worried because they only took one vial of blood; they couldn't have run both tests on one vial. But okay, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I'll wait for them to call. I'll be a good little lamb.
I couldn't stand waiting, though, and decided to call back and check up on that test. Waiting four days instead of the two they said it'd take was bad enough, I thought, but then to have them switch my test with someone else's? That's bad juju. So I called and spoke to the doctor's nurse instead of a receptionist this time. She gave me the same blah-blah about taking OTC fish oil capsules. I said, "Are we talking about last Wednesday's test? Because last Wednesday, I came in for a thyroid test. Didn't I?"
NOPE.
They gave me the wrong blood test. Blood tests cost eighty bucks. I saved for weeks for this blood test, and they gave me the wrong ******* test.
AND, to top it all off, eating my morning flaxseed cereal and being abstemious and eating like a healthy person has not, in fact, made me a healthy person. I did not WANT to know my TG levels. I'm already doing all the things that they tell you you're supposed to do--quit smoking, lose weight, eat more fruits and veg, eat less meat and full-fat dairy stuff, we all know the drill--and I actively did not want to know. (That may seem weird to not want to know, but...eh, it's like being told to take out the trash when you already have it in hand and are halfway out the door. Just annoying, and to no good purpose.)
I don't have eighty bucks for another test, yet I am out of my thyroid prescription and need the blood test to get it refilled.
I'm livid. Livid and worried because I'll feel like crap for those few days that my body feels its levothyroxine intermission. My already-slow weight loss will stop. I'll itch everywhere from dry skin. I'll sleep ten- and eleven-hour days. I'll feel half-asleep. I hate hate HATE the way that feels. It's wretched.
How in the **** am I supposed to trust this doctor's staff at this point? I'm so mad I can't see straight! And I have zero recourse aside from free clinics, and I make too much money for a free clinic to see me so my best option is this "urgent care" facility.
They URGENTLY need to hire some ******* staff with the third-grade literacy level needed to process "Patient will be in on Wednesday for TSH. Arrange lipo panel for later test date." They URGENTLY need to call me and make nicey-nice with me for effin' up.
Thank goodness I just have a bum thyroid; what if they'd given the wrong test to someone who has diabetes? What if it was supposed to be a hepatitis test? AIDS test? Pregnancy test?
I'm sorry this is so long. Sorry to bend your collective disembodied ear about this stupid problem. I'm just...so...MAD and my husband is out for his jog and I just feel like crap on a cracker about my blood-work even if it wasn't the blood-work I needed done. I didn't WANT to know, and now that I do I feel like there's an alarm clock in my chest where my heart should be.
I am going to bed and pulling the blankets over my head and having a good cry now. Then I will think about what I'm going to do.