GRRRRRRR I just had a call from my physician. Apparently the hospital lab has lose THREE VIALS of my blood. LOST BLOOD???????? How in the can a lab lose THREE VIALS of blood????? Now I have to schlep back over there in the early morning with NO BREAKFAST OR COFFEE and roll up my sleeve for more bleeding!!!! GRRRRRRR, GRRRRRR. I hate incompetence. I also wonder what poor soul got my tests by mistake?? Could it be that someone who is suffering from some dread disease thinks he is perfectly fine because he got my tests instead of his own or vice versa??? How in the blazes can I trust anything these schmucks do??? GRRRRRR [rant over] Oh, and I'm supposed to feel okay about this because I won't get charged for the new tests. Duhhhhh, I paid for the freaking tests already so how's this supposed to make me feel better? Huh??? I was planning to leave at 7 am for SC in the morning. Now I can't leave until after I go get these stinking tests and the lab doesn't open until 9:00. My bp is in overload, folks.

 

Here's a poor baby coming your way, Val.

We've had some similar experiences.

My daughter in law was told she was not pregnant after some testing at the doctor's office. The home test said she was pregnant; those supposedly may give false negatives, not false positives. She took another home test and it still said "pregnant."

She ended up back at the doctors for another test. Yes she was pregnant. It was possible the first blood or urine sample was mixed up with my son's as he also had an appointment that day. Unlikely for his blood/urine to test positive for pregnancy.

Rick recently had an test at the doc's office for strep throat. It was negative, but examination seemed to indicate strep. They took another culture which needed a day or two in the lab and put him on antibiotics, as a precaution. The antibiotics caused side effects so after not hearing from the doctor's office, I finally called. NOPE, no strep. He was taking the antibiotics for nothing.

I hear ya Val. Poor baby.

 

Go right ahead and rant. I sure would. At least you spelled schmuck right.

 

It shouldn't take too long then. Look on the good side, it could have been your colonoscopy records they lost.

Did I cheer you up?

 

I also have little tolerance for incompetence. But, one has to look at the big picture in life. On the bright side, the person that lost your blood samples was not handling your luggage on a vacation or business trip. Or more importantly: They were not piloting your plane.

 

Or your colonoscopy.

 

Sorry about your retesting, I've had some health issues lately so am intimately aquainted with the joys of multitudes of blood tests.
The thread title reminded me of a decade or so ago when I worked for a Captain (I was sailing as a 2nd Mate) who would write the same thing on my annual evaluation every year.
(I paraphrase)

"Mike is an excellent officer, but he continually demonstrates absolutely no tolerance for incompetence."

He would for this reason always grade me a 3.0 (of 5.0) on my management skills.

Personally, I always took it as a compliment.

Now that I am an old, ultrasalty Captain in my own right, I can see where he was coming from, I am still highly intolerant of incompetence, but I express my intolerance in much more 'constructive' ways than I used to, and I now realize that sometimes, hell, you just have to suck it up and deal with it.
Cheers,
Mike

 

I am reminded of the Peter Principle. That some people will always rise to their level of incompetence.

Most of us in "Corporate life" see that principle play out almost everyday.

 

Now I feel a lot better.

 

Val, chances are very very small that your blood ended up mislabeled with somebody else