Ever been told to collect 48 hours worth of your childs urine, have to wait 3 weeks for the right kind of pills to accompany the procedure, get through the step-by-step’d 2 days with your special needs child, only to drop it off at the lab upon completion and be told that it’s unacceptable and we have to do it again? Me neither, until this past weekend.
Knowing this wouldn’t be the most simplest of tasks, mostly because I work Saturdays so I had to instruct her over and over of the process, I wanted to get it done. This was three weeks ago when nurse Chrissy first gave us the pee kit package. The procedure involved taking 2 penicillin twice on day 2. When I left the hospital that day, I was only given 2 pills, not 4.
Still awake? I’m not but I’ll dream write the rest of this. Two point whatever weeks go by as apparently it’s difficult to get these pills. When they finally arrived, it was back on. A weekend of piss.
The plan was straightforward enough but tricky due to dealing with my daughter who can be forgetful among other things. Day 1: first pee of the day into the toilet. Second pee (and all other pees) need to be done into a “hat” then the sample poured into the jug. First one in the jug needed to be documented. The rest of the day is simple: each pee goes into the hat then into the jug.
I realize this posting may be not the most entertaining so I’m going to need you to get up and either walk around for 20 seconds or slap your face really friggin hard, like twice each cheek. Go!
Hey there. Welcome back. Take a seat. Where were we? Oh.. peepee weekend. All night and including the first void of the morning on day 2 was to be collected into jug 1, then the final whiz time documented, which I did. Boom. Next!
She then was required to consume 2 pills and then fast for 1 hour. From then on, each pee was to be put from the hat into jug 2, with the first one documented. Done. Up to this point, we were nailing it and when I say we I mean her. Let’s continue. Yes, we have to. We got this far, we might as well finish it.
She drank more on day 2 so she urinated more. 2 hours after supper, approximately 12 hours since the first dose, she took the remaining 2 pills then fasted for an hour. From there, she was to pee throughout the night and then her first one of the day into jug numero 2 which signaled the end of this crap (pun awkwardly intended).
Monday I have off and this one I had to make an 9am appointment so with my water bottle under my arm and the 2 bags filled with fresh piss in either hand, I exited the family domain. When I got to the lab, I waltzed in and waited to be called. Not more than 3 minutes later, I walked up to the desk and slammed the jugs down, cold pee splattered everywhere and everyone in site.
I kid, I kid. I put them down and the nurse went over the times I wrote down and viewed the 2 requisitions. There was some confusion so she beckoned another girl, this one with about 44 facial and ear piercings, to come take a peekski. What came out of her metallic lips made my relief inflate fluidly into full blown inner rage, one which I bit my tongue to prevent real loud levels of Kris from coming out. In not so many words, she said “The numbers you’ve documented don’t add up to 48 hours so you will have to redo the sample”.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t bang my fists. I didn’t even roll around on the floor.. though I yearned to do something similar. I, I’ll admit, aggressively said no, that this was very trying, she’s special needs, I’m not doing it again and that’s that. She brought me to another room, safe from all the other blood and piss donors, and tried to figure it out. She explained because my times did not document a 24 hour time frame per jug, that the urine was unusable. What she wanted to see was “first pee 8am then last pee 8am”. I explained I did as I was instructed. Day 1 collect every pee over 24 hours. Same on day 2, plus the pills and hour fasts. My daughters first pee in the jug wasn’t until 3pm Saturday and then, as instructed, we collected the first one of day 2 which happened to be 8am. By her rules, if she first peed at 3pm Saturday, then 3pm Sunday the first jug is complete (with my kid magically forcing a whiz at 3pm as though on command to appease her heiness at the lab).
Furthermore, if we started the second jug at say 5pm Sunday, then my daughter would have had to miss school on Monday to collect the precious yellow stuff all day til 5pm. Umm, nope. We’re good, thanks.
Lengthy story short.. they accepted it, after a call from Chrissy.
This post I felt was needed, not so much from a medical stand point but again pointing to that enough is enough in our lives. I understand set backs and life lessons but what I don’t get are the little to medium frustrations and unnecessary minutes in our lives that shake us up and waste our time and pun intended.. piss us off. So over it.
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