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Blood tests... advice sought.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:40 / 21.01.03

Sorry to bore you all with this again, but I've just been sent some weird shit from the hospital. I have to go for tests next month, and all was fine and dandy thus far.

Now I get "In view of your heavy alcohol intake, I think we should do some routine blood tests. I enclose the relevant blood forms."

And two forms (which I don't understand) with plastic bags attached to them.

WTF do I do? Do I send 'em some blood? Do I fill something in and arrange for them to extract it? What?

Shortfatdyke

15:43 / 21.01.03

Eek! The thought of you taking your own blood samples makes me feel faint. I assume you take the stuff to the blood test dept of your local hospital, but best thing to do I would think is look at the letter that came with the stuff - it'll have a phone number on it somewhere. Ring and check.

And good luck with it - I hope all turns out to be well.

that

15:59 / 21.01.03

You can, I believe, take the forms to your doctor, and get a nurse to draw blood, and send them on to whoever ordered it in the first place...

that

16:01 / 21.01.03

I mean - your GP surgery will probably be able to send it on to the hospital. In case that wasn't clear...

Best of luck with all the medical stuff Stoatie.

Ganesh

17:27 / 21.01.03

They're likely to be tests of liver function - which are fairly routine if one suspects heavy alcohol use, past or present. Why they've been sent to you is something of a mystery (I'm assuming they haven't also sent a syringe and vacutainers?) as you're gonna have to get your GP or Practice Nurse to take the actual blood sample for you.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:28 / 21.01.03

Thank Christ for that!

that

20:51 / 21.01.03

My psychiatrist gave me a form-and-bag too once. I think they do it to cut out the middleman - if they wrote to your doctor with the form-and-bag, the doctor would then have to call you in. Probably just easier for them to send it to you and let you make of that what you will...

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