Hi--
I hope you are all doing relatively well. I think my cortisol was off so the new endo asked for a 24 hour urine for cortisol. So I go to the hospital lab to pick up the container to store my urine and the lab tech working on me said she didn't have the boric acid to put in it. The other lab tech who was clocking out, said that it was right upstairs, no big deal but didn't offer to get it for her, and my lab tech kept saying she didn't know where it was and she would not be able to find it. The leaving lab tech just clucked and shook her head and left. Meanwhile, my lab tech called someone and asked if she had to put the boric acid in or could they do it when I brought the urine back, after the 24 hour period. Well finally she got the answer she wanted after transferring a few times and handed me the empty container. I asked her how the person who was receiving the container would know to put the boric acid in, and she said they would know from the orders, even though she never wrote anything down about not putting the boric acid in or requesting that it be put in when I returned the container. I finally, getting nowhere, left and when I got home and read the instructions, it said "Do not accept this container if the Boric Acid preservative is not inside!" So then I was really frustrated. I go through the 24 hours peeing in the container and return to the hospital lab with it. I had to go through registration again because they screwed that up and had to wait about an hour to return the urine. When I saw the lab tech to give her the urine, I told her she needed to put the boric acid in because the other lab tech didn't do it. Well, she refused to do it, she said it was not her job and they would do it upstairs. Well, I was flipping out because again, how would the lab people upstairs know it needed to be done, and would the specimen even be good with no preservative in it? So we went round and round and eventually someone called the supervisor who apparently had been called the first time and said that it was ok to not put the boric acid in it now, that it would be done upstairs. I showed them the note that said, "Do not accept this jug without the boric acid in it!" and she remarked that I never should have been given that. I was surprised at the total laziness and lack of regard or care that they were following proper procedure, let alone not even knowing what the boric acid was for yet feeling comfortable leaving it out. All because someone was too lazy to go upstairs and get some more preservative. It was absolutely ridiculous and now I don't trust the results of the test and if it comes out normal I want to take it again and will tell my endo what happened in the lab. No wonder so many people are misdiagnosed or problems are missed. It has taken me so long to get this test run (13 years) and I resent these lazy lab techs screwing it up for me. Sorry to vent, but this is American health care and its only going to get worse. People just don't care anymore. It's truly sad. My crime was coming in for the test. Had I known it would be such a hassle, I never would have gone there. Now my insurance will have to pay to have a second one run, possibly. Well, I hope you all have better experiences with labs and stuff. I just wonder sometimes when you are really sick and the labs come out all normal, whether they get run right, or at all sometimes. It just makes you wonder.