Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Endometrial Biopsy Snafu and Appt Update

On Monday my DH and I went to the FedEx location by our house to have my endometrial biopsy specimen for my E-tegrity Test sent to Boston. We paid $40 to ship it there via Priority Overnight and got the tracking number in return. I followed the instructions to a "T" and had my DH double check everything.

Yesterday we were out running errands together all day and when we returned home at 4:00pm I had a message from Sepal Diagnostics- the company I sent it to. They had received the specimen, but they shouldn't have. The gal I spoke to said that they have received other specimens and wanted to know how I received these instructions. I explained the situation to her and that I had received the instructions from CCRM. She asked if I could fax over the instructions to her so that she could contact CCRM to give them the updated information.

I told her that I was sorry that they now had to pay $$ to send my specimen from Boston to California (where the specimen was supposed to be sent). She explained that was part of the problem. The shipping was supposed to be included in the $475 cost of the test.

Today I called CCRM and talked to my nurse. She looked at the instructions that they had given me and saw that it was not correct. She was going to give it to the administrative people to fix. She apologized for the confusion and expressed concern over the situation. She is also going to check with the business office to see if they can give me a refund for the $40 in shipping that I paid.

My nurse also gave me the go-ahead to schedule a re-group appt with Dr. School.craft in anticipation of getting my E-tegrity results back. DH and I want to discuss all of our test results with him and decide what our next step will be. Our appt is scheduled for March 10.

Also, yesterday while we were out running errands I received a call from my local RE clinic. The nurse gave me my new protocol and asked when we plan on doing our next cycle there. If you remember we have one more cycle that we have already paid for there. I told her that I would need to talk to my DH and let them know. DH and I discussed talking to Dr. School.craft first and then making an appt with our local RE and then decide we will do our last cycle locally or go straight to CCRM.

I have a feeling that the next month or so will be full of intense decisions to make...

9 comments:

Josée Martens said...

Hi! Just found your blog. Good luck with the etegrity test. I did that too. I am leaving for denver in 10 days. :-)

kayjay said...

Interesting day full of excitement! Geez, there seems to be a lot of confusion on CCRM's side about where to send the samples to. At first, they didn't even know the test had been sold to Sepal and now they aren't even telling people to send it to the right place! I think I spoke directly with a person at Sepal when I did mine so I was lucky enough to get the right instructions directly from them.

Hopefully, you will have all the information you need to make the decisions you need to make in the next month. It will be a plan, a direction to go in rather than flapping around aimlessly. GL with your decisions and keep us posted on your test results!

Sky said...

Kris - thanks so much for stopping by to post and for the correction on the place to send specimen. You are an angel to post this and alert folks. When I ordered the "kit" (which is nothing more than an empty container, 2 biohazard baggies), it came with a pre-printed FedEx airbill which is made out to Calpath Med Assoc/Gyne-Path Lab in Los Gatos, CA. So from the story you're telling, looks like this is the right address (vs. the Boston address on CCRM's instructions).

We try so damned hard to be so exact, so precise, so painfully careful applying every patch, taking every pill, dosing every syringe - that when the party to whom we're paying an enormous sum of money (we are the clients!!! - sometimes I think they forget that!) screws up, it feels even more painful.

So...about the pain (yeah, let me get down to the important stuff :) thanks for the numbing tip. Did your doctor inject your cervix in order to numb it? I'm really very scared about Monday, but I'm actually even more scared NOT to have the test (even though Dr. Surrey didn't require it - I requested it). I don't want to find out after a BFN or a miscarriage that I was missing the integrin.

Oh, and did you test on CD25 (as I was told to?)?

I'm going to bookmark you so I can keep track of what's going on.

Despite annoying snafu's on their part, I do believe CCRM is top notch and the best chance for success and they work absolute miracles (not saying you'd be one - I think you're going to do just fine, you'll see!).

Wishing you the best! :)))

Sky

Kris said...

Sky- Yes, the biopsy should have been sent to CalPath in CA. I was never even told to get a shipping kit. CCRM just gave me this sheet with instructions on it and the name for Sepal in Boston to send it to. You are right...we try to do everything right and when one of the top clinics give us a snafu, well...it just isn't good. I called CalPath this afternoon and they still had not received my specimen from Sepal so hopefully when I call tomorrow, they will have it. I have no desire to get this test done again!

I had my test done on CD 26. I was peeing on the ClearBlue OPKs and got the :) (smiley face) on February 4 (CD 16). It needs to be performed 9-11 days past the LH shown on the OPK (at least, that is what I was told:)).

I agree about CCRM. They are one of the best and if we decide to cycle again locally before heading out to CO for our last cycle then I can put up with the little snafu's along the way. As long as I know that I will be cycling with the best, it will all be worth it in the end!

GL on Monday at your biopsy. I have your blog bookmarked too!

MamaSoon- Thanks for stopping by and saying Hi! I will be following your journey as well!

Kayjay- I am so excited for you to get to CO! Can't wait to hear how this cycle goes for you!!

Kris

Sue said...

what a pain! I probably would be freaking out about it being lost or something happening to it! But it sounds like they know exactly what to do (and have done it before...!) Glad you found Sky and alerted her too!

Okay, I have a question...can you do 2 more cycles? If one is already paid for, it is like a bonus one. Then if (and I pray not...) you aren't successful, you get out the BIG GUNS (aka CCRM). Just wondering.Apprently if I was rich, I'd never stop doing IVF, lol. Did you read KayJay's post about IVF addiction? "Hi, my name is Sue...and I am an addict."

Kris said...

Sue- I have been freaking out about my biopsy:) I called the lab yesterday and they had not received it yet and told me to call back today. I am so hoping I don't have to have it done again next month!!

At this point DH and I are tentatively planning on doing one more cycle locally (we paid for three fresh and any resulting frozen tx's through our clinics self-funded warranty program). If we don't have success locally we will get our $25,000 back that we paid for the three cycles and then go to CCRM. If I were rich I don't think I would stop doing IVF either, LOL! I totally resonated with KayJay's post!!!:)

Kris

Jill M. said...

Ugh, so frustrating that we triple check to make sure we follow instruction to the T and then you find out CCRM gave you wrong instructions!

I'm actually frustrated with this whole e-tegrity thing. CCRM gave me the instructions. The instruction on how many days past +opk to do the biopsy was scratched out and 9-11 days was hand written on it. It also mentions attaching a shipping label and I was like, what label? It doesn't say anything about calling Sepal.

So I called Sepal to ask some questions. I hope this helps anyone about to do this test. First, call them, they will send you or your dr. a kit with a prepaid label. Second, they told me to do the biopsy 7-10 days post +opk.

The lady at Sepal was very nice and hang in there thru my frustation. She understands that we want to make sure we are getting this test done on the correct day as it is painful and expensive.

I asked her how many days past ovulation the test should be done because ovulation happens 12-48 hrs after a +opk and I wanted my timing to be more accurate. She insisted that getting a +opk means you have ovulated, but I completely disagree, it means you're gearing up to ovulate. We never did end up agreeing on this. Maybe that's why CCRM adjusted the timeframe to 9-11 days. So now I'm stressing on which day to do the test.

I hope you get your results soon!

Jill M. said...

PS... the lady from Sepal did ask me who gave me these instructions because I'm not the first patient that was confused. She said she was going to talk to CCRM and get them to update their instructions.

Kris said...

I talked to Kaila at Sepal and she also told me that she was going to contact CCRM. I sure wish I would have called them to get the shipping kit, ie, the shipping label so that I didn't have to pay $40 to shiop it!

I sure hope that I had mine done on the correct day otherwise I will be really p*ssed! I did my 9 days after I saw the smiley face on the OPK. When is everyone else doing theirs??