Boxes of Blood.....

There is already a post about this.  But this is a different box.

Babygirl is supposed to draw her own blood during dialysis to follow her potassium and phosphorus levels, among other things. She is supposed to draw additional specimens to send to Rochester.  This has to be done every month, and the tubes are supposed to get boxed and FedEx'd to the tissue typing lab. Every. Month.

Without those samples they can't crossmatch her tissues and antibodies to an incoming kidney to confirm a match.  So if the blood isn't available, she could miss opportunities for transplant.

I really can't recall the last time we were in Rochester, but that is the last time that one of these specimens went to the lab. It's been.....months.

It isn't that Babygirl hasn't tried.  Our local hospital used to do this when she was listed at CHOP.  And CHOP (have I said how much I MISS CHOP??) provided us with a labeled mailing box for the hospital to use, along with an appropriately coded order.

All of that is missing. We have boxes, with no labels for the blood tubes and no mailing labels. The first order wasn't signed by her provider. Now we have a signed order but no codes. 

We got as far as having the blood tubes, hand labeled with Babygirl's name and date of birth. No order was needed as she drew it herself.  Per the new instructions from the dialysis team, we drove to the local FedEx office. 

This is the story they told us:  "We can't take that here because of the warning on the bottom." It is clearly labeled as a biologic specimen.  According to them, people at the store "lack the necessary training to handle that." They also would not print a label for it so we could put it in a drop box (which is apparently emptied by people who have the "necessary training"?). Not one word of that made any sense to me.

They told us to go online and get a label, email it to them, and then they would print it for us. We already travelled from our town to the next one over. So they want us to go BACK home, email them, and go BACK to them, and then back home?  

I went online. One full frustrating hour later (much of it spent trying to find a contact number and go through the endless "if A/press B" menus to get to an actual person), I finally downloaded a file for the label and emailed it to MYSELF so I can print it at the office and get the sucker mailed. Then I can stuff it into a drop box, which is thankfully located in my own neighborhood.

All home improvement projects have what I call a "swearing and screaming phase." Keeping your kid on the transplant list by mailing 2 tubes of blood to her hospital should NOT have that phase, but I'll admit that there was crying in addition. 

Just....why?

DeeDee