I took the day off today to get my 3-hour glucose tolerance test done. When I arrived at the Diagnostic Labs in my neighborhood, they advised me that my last blood draw would cut into their lunch hour and that I would need to wait 15 minutes so that they could draw my blood when they re-opened the lab. Hey, what’s another 15 minutes when I’ve already fasted a good 14 hours (17 hours by the end of the test)? So, I sat there for 15 minutes, reading “Your Baby’s First Year: Week by Week.” At precisely 9:45, the lab technician asked me which flavor of glucola I preferred, orange or lime, and poured me a cup of the chilled sugar-laden drink. She advised me that I had five minutes to drink the entire bottle, so I tanked 100 grams of the orange syrupy drink in two minutes flat.
Just as I was taking my last sip, the lab technician came back, looking harried. “Did you already drink it all?”
“I’m done now,” I answered and drank the last of it.
“I’m SO sorry!” she exclaimed. Uh-oh. “I didn’t realize it, but we had to do a fasting blood draw first.”
I stared blankly at her, my heart sinking in my chest as I held the empty cup in my hand. “So… you mean I have to come back again?”
“I’m SO sorry!” she said again. “We can’t do the test today because if I draw your blood now, your levels will be high. So you’d have to fast again for 12 hours… umm… and even if you did, we couldn’t do the draw today because we close…blah blah blah…” she went on, but I wasn’t listening by this time.
“Aw, man… I took the day off just to take this test,” I sighed.
“I’m SO sorry!” she went on to apologize profusely. She looked genuinely sorry, and it’s not in my nature to give people a hard time anyway. Besides, I could complain until I’m blue in the face, but it won’t change the fact that I couldn’t take the test today and there’s nothing that could be done to change that — so, why waste my breath?
“Okay, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I said and went to have breakfast at Zippy’s — with 100 grams of glucose unnecessarily coursing through my veins.
