The New Medicine Part II

19 May 2020

Like many Americans of my age and gender, I suffer from high cholesterol.  Might have been the cheesesteak subs of my youth or one too many truffle fries.  Yes, Jolly Pumpkin I am talking about your evil enticing ways here.  As a result, this blood work imbalance, and the hope of not dying early, I see a doctor who specializes in HDL, LDL and all the others Ls usually about twice a year.  Given times being what they are, I called last week and was told my early June visit is still on. The staff member who answered my questions advised me I needed to get my blood work done pretty soon.

If going into my primary care doctor’s office seemed kind of risky to me, risky enough that tele-med made sense, going into a lab waiting room seemed even more dicey.  I asked about how they were handling waiting room cleanliness when I called the lab office.  The person on the other end of the phone line told me not to worry.  According to this cheerful soul most of the risk had been reduced by the opening of a new drive thru lab.  All I would have to do is roll up to an old auto repair facility, give them my driver’s license and insurance card, and they would draw my blood sample from me through my car window.  Seems legit I thought.

This morning at a little after 9 a.m., having fasted for 14 hours, I headed off for the lab.  The drive thru lab is located in a now defunct Sears auto center.  When we arrived at about 9:15 five bays were open with 5 to 6 cars idling in each line. Kind of looked like the border crossing into Canada at Sarnia. Took about twenty minutes to get inside. I, wearing a mask and gloves, handed my ID and insurance card to the tech. My documents were encased in a Ziploc sandwich bag.  When she handed them back to me, I dropped them into an empty plastic grocery bag. 

My draw took about 15 minutes, sort of.  Apparently while entering my information the computer crashed.  The tech called a supervisor over and he just rebooted the machine.  The reboot took a bit.  I was half expected to see those dread Windows “Update installing” words flash on the screen.  The dread blue screen of endless delay didn’t happen.  Once my lab labels were printed off, the blood draw took less than a minute.

The lab tech was fully dressed in appropriate protective gear.  A mask, face shield, gloves and full body coverings were in use.  The neon safety jacket necessitated by being in a garage was a nice touch. 

Draw done off we went to home.  The gloves were wiped with Clorox wipes and set aside to dry.  The plastic bags were all disposed of.  My hands were washed with soap for forty seconds.  Facemasks were dropped into the washer and a load of dirty laundry was run on high temperature.

I am not complaining here. I have absolutely no problem with this model of lab activity.  I don’t want to be the person who picks up that stray bug flying around in the air because the cleaning or distancing protocols were not followed. Mostly what I am saying is that life has changed.  Possibly, well probably, it will never be the same.