This will be a ramble rant; probably more of the former than the latter. Many years ago I was subjected to floor to ceiling scanning and a node on an adrenal gland was noticed. I have discovered in my encounters with emergency centers, if they have opportunity to scan you top to bottom, they do. The first time was in conjunction with my stroke.
So anyway, I have an endocrinologist, who is in charge of keeping my thyroid in line, and I see him every six months. I need to have blood work done before I go, and so I went to the clinic to do that last week for an appointment to see him this week.
My standing order had run out! I fired off an unhappy email to him and he answered he'd put in a new order, and an order for adrenal labs. I responded Why? It keeps turning up the same size, scan after scan. Well, he said, it could be making hormones we can't find in a scan. He would prescribe a pill to take at night and have the blood draw no later than nine the next morning.
Well hold the phone. I'm barely eating breakfast at nine. What are my alternatives? And so help me, not twenty four hours later, just maybe 4 minutes later her replied The 24 Hour Urine Test.
Not the Pee Test! Now I recall ten years ago when faced with the 9 a.m. blood draw, opting cheerfully for the Pee Test. If you have ever done it, you know. If you have not done it, you really don't want to. I know, and don't want to do it again.
My problem with it is, schlepping that gallon jug of pee to the lab and sitting until your turn in the waiting room, surrounded by blood draw folks, with a gallon of pee between your feet. And there is no question that bottle holds anything but pee.
I have decided, since there were no suspects in 24 hours of pee ten years ago and it's been the same little node in many scans since, there probably will be no suspects in this 9 a.m. pill pee test. I'm 79; in ten years I'll be 89 and the next time this subject comes up, I'll just refuse. With any luck my endo doc will be retired by then.
OK, that's the story. Thanks for listening. I'm about to search my albums for an illustration. What can I find?
Great photo, Joanne. Well ranted!
ReplyDeleteThat's a hilarious swimming cat pic. My black cat Duncan loved water but never had a suit.
ReplyDeleteI've done that test, and insisted on leaving the container off in the lab before I sat in the waiting room! Not wanting to advertise my 24 hour adventure.
You have had quite a relationship with the doctor crowd!! I think that they just make you do stuff because they have crushes on you and just want to see you all of the time!!
ReplyDelete24 hour pee test is just wrong, so is having to sit with it.
ReplyDeleteThey certainly have lots of stuff to put us through. Once they start they keep you in the loop for years...until you're 89!
ReplyDeleteGreat illustration! I'm feeling that way too--all my photos have disappeared from my blog and when I try to post, it won't let me insert any pictures. I'm disgruntled. I'm still of an age where I feel like I can't refuse the tests but my mom just tells them no to everything.
ReplyDeleteI recall sitting in waiting rooms for prenatal examinations and seeing several women with gallon pee bottles. I never knew why at the time, but perhaps they were testing for gestational diabetes?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I hope your pee test comes back negative for any nasties.
Ha, ha. It would be embarssing to have to wait in the waiting room at the lab with one's pee sample. Where I go you just put it in a container near the front desk and away you go. No need to wait around.
ReplyDeleteSigh. Sometimes I think they send us off for myriads of tests because they can.
ReplyDeleteYears back when transporting a urine sample to the doctor's waiting room I dropped it. It was in a glass bottle and shattered. On the front steps of the law courts. I still cringe about those memories, but the law courts have probably seen worse.
The doc or his nurse should at least explain why for each test. That 24-hour test was rarely ordered in the hospitals when something was suspected. He should tell you if he's suspecting anything, and what. Nice rant. Olympic kitty, eh? Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteAll I could think was, "Why the heck is no one putting their bottle inside a market bag? Then nobody knows you have anything other than a bottle of milk in there..." YAM xx
Ten years, the first time, I didn't have a market bag. I do now, but putting in a gallon of pee doesn't work for me.
DeleteMedical people seem to love dreaming up new and exciting ways to humiliate us!
ReplyDeleteI think that if ever I need to rant, I am coming back to this as my template, Joanne! So far I haven't had issues with medical folk, primarily because I have been healthy all my life and have had little contact with them. Who knows when that may change, but I will be careful to try to avoid the gallon of pee treatment!
ReplyDeleteTests, tests and more tests. My late uncle used to say, "Anything they can bill for will be done!" The 24 hour pee test is new to me.
ReplyDeleteOh, damn. That sounds highly inconvenient and most likely completely unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteHis only justification: It's time.
DeleteI am reminded of once having to fill two jugs over the course of (I think) a week. There was something different about each jug, so it took two.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, the 24 hour pee test. Been there, done that! Hope you get good results again.
ReplyDeleteI take levothyroxine for my thyroid but only need bloodwork done once a year. what does the pill do before your bloodwork? 9 AM would be too late for me. If I have to have fasting bloodwork done before I have my coffee much less breakfast I want it done as early as possible. I'll drag myself out of bed. Fortunately there's a Quest lab less than 10 minutes from my house. But then everything in this little town is about 10 minutes from my house.
ReplyDeleteJoanne, I try to make all appointments starting a 10 am... and not before. Even though I'm up by 8, I need the 2 hours to feel awake. Going without breakfast (or tea/coffee) doesn't bother me.
ReplyDeleteI'm beginning to need tests too, probably most of us do as we get older, and I don't like it.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh that picture somehow gave me a shock. It was so not what I was expecting! (the cat, I mean)
ReplyDeleteWhat a headache.
ReplyDeleteAack, sounds awful. And I'm totally with you that 9 am is too early for a doctor's appointment.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the more we age the more they hope to find wrong. When I was in the hospital after my stroke they did the full scan. The doctor was really disappointed that I had a kidney stone instead of cancer in that area. He would have been overjoyed to learn that the lump in my breast was malignant.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly why I avoid doctors. I am perfectly good at humiliating myself. I don't need to pay for someone to do it for me.
ReplyDeletePee test? Wow! That really doesn't sound fun at all. I swear... getting older has all these disagreeable tests. I'm always getting stuck for another blood test.
ReplyDelete