Hospital appointment today to take bloods before the biopsy on Friday.
The appointment letter said allow 1 hour. That's 1/2 hour to find a parking space. 15 minutes to find Ward 9. Not so easy when the signage goes 7,8, .. 10, 11. My letter says 'Short Stay Unit' (I think they've directed me to the pay-and-display car park) but none of the signs do. I try the 'Day Case Unit' and the 'Assessment Unit' before being directed to the right set of doors. Remember those NHS days when there was a Day Room for each ward, that stank of tobacco and had one ropey TV in it? Now hospitals are non-smoking and in most wards each bed has its pay-as-you-go TV. What to do with the empty room? Fix another notice on top of the old Day Room one and call it something fancy!
5 minutes for lovely plump Rachel to confidently say in her Brummie accent 'Oi cun get bluud out ov a stown, me', and prove she is right. Then 10 minutes to get the heck out of there.
Rachel is my kind of can-do nurse. Yes she can include the AFP. Yes she can tell me which bloods she is taking. Yes they will be on the computer system in 4 hours. Yes my GP can log into the system or ring the path lab tomorrow and get the results. Yes they will send written results to my GP so I can have copies. Yay!
Of course whether this all falls into place is another thing entirely. Tomorrow I'll ring the GP and hopefully find out if my tumour marker is stable.
More waiting.
ONWARDS AND UPWARDS - a diagnosis and treatment of Hepatocellular carcinoma (primary liver cancer) diagnosed August 2010, presumed caused by 30+ years of chronic hepatitis B. And a search for how to be healthy living with cirrhosis presumed caused by Autoimmune hepatitis (diagnosed April 2011)
Fingers and everything else crossed for you Fiona....
ReplyDeleteRachel sounds great 'Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes'
Perfect & just what the Doctor ordered :-)
Will be looking out for your update xxx
Carole
ReplyDeleteI'll pop Rachel in a jiffy bag and post her to you. Perhaps she can get hold of that elusive first CEA result you've been waiting for.
LOL, I bet she would too...
ReplyDeleteJust been discussing this with my friend. I'm stuck and just don't know what to do next.
I suspect they've 'lost' the results and this is why I'm getting fobbed off but am going to send yet another email this evening.
Are you emailing your medic or the laboratory that analysed the blood?
ReplyDeleteOn the autoimmune result I had printed out by my GP it had the phone number of the university path lab that ran the test. I rang the number when I was having my rant before Christmas, gave them my NHS number, name and DOB while putting on my pretend doctor's secretary voice and they had no problem talking to me.
Have you got any contact details for the lab.
My bloods were taken at the hospital where I had the surgery and when I contacted the blood dept (after I couldn't get anywhere with the colorectal team) they referred me back to the colorectal nurses...sigh...
ReplyDeleteI'm not giving up though. I've had nothing printed out since this all began - nothing, not one single test result.
Now that I've finished swearing on your behalf and come back down from the ceiling! ......
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be common practice with my 2 different NHS treatment centres and one GP practice, that any test or procedure requiring my 'notes' i.e my large and disgracefully tatty hospital file to be retrieved from the library - had a COPY of the test result or letter etc sent to my GP as a matter of course.
Is your GP happily bobbing along in total ignorance of all the tests and procedures you have had since the beginning? If the GP is up to date as they should be (they are involved in your care after all) you are entitled to copies of everything about you.
What happened to the Biopsy fax - did you get a copy of that?
As Victor Meldrew said "I don't believe it" - Grrr.
Nope,
ReplyDeleteI never did get the biopsy report and my GP has received nothing about my results either - except the discharge paper and copies of letters from my surgeon - which I do have.
They do not contain any info about ANY test results though...just things like 'trying to get this lady to agree to surgery'..:-)
I do feel that it needs to be standard practice for ALL NHS trusts to provide written confirmation of all tests results for all patients.
This may well become my new crusade once I'm well enough.
Anyway, enough of me - this is YOUR blog and I'm waiting to hear about *your* results. Hopefully today...xxx
To be fair, it's my GP practice who come up trumps each time. I've never had blood test result sheets or the biopsy copy direct from source - always a print-out off the GP surgery computer or a photocopy. But at my consultant's clinic there is a note on the wall that says 'if you want a copy of any letters sent to your GP, please ask'.
ReplyDeleteWe have a couple of secretaries at the GP surgery who sit with the receptionists and between 10am and 1pm their job is to deal with test results. They seem have computer access to the rest of the East Cheshire NHS PCT network.