feelbad

hon, they DO need to ice this IMMEDIATELY since ammonia will dissapate quickly. if anything his actual ammonia level could have been or could be much HIGHER than it actually showed on that test,just because it was not properly iced immediately upon being drawn. there is some level of breakdown that occurs when the blood is not iced. i cannot remeber the whole thing here but i would definitely ask them to draw one specimen with ice and one without and see if there is any difference. personally,i think there will be.

every single different ER or hospital we went to that they had to draw an emergent or routine ammonia level on my son,ALWAYS iced the tube,always. he used to have a long standing appt at 3:00 right after school every single wed,up til his transplant,and every single tube for the ammonia draw was set into a cup of ice the tech always had sitting there. i would seriously make them do this for him and compare samples. from what you described here i DO think his actual level was much higher than was stated as.

ask them to look up the standard lab procedures/protocals for drawing ammonia levels,i can guarentee you its listed in the standard protocals tho not every hospital actually does this for some stupid reason(too inconvenient perhaps??). if it didn;t make a difference in the levels,it wouldn't be in the standard protocals in the first place,you know what i mean? they just really do need to be doing this for him. talk to his doc about this and see what he says. or ask to see the overall standards that the lab itself has and compare that to national standards. they HAVE to have at least one standard protocal lab book in the lab at that hospital. you just need to make certain they are doing the right things in the right way for your husband. and you were right to question that tech. maybe she actually bothered to look this up after she got back to the lab??? we can only hope? but you DO have right on your side here,trust me on that one. good for you.

when things are not being done properly in any hospital it usually is not til something actually happens to a patient or somebody bothers to question something that things get changed or even found out,ya know? i would ask around that hospital about this practice,it just is NOT the nationally accepted standard in ammonia draw protocal. i do hope your hubby is doing better. they DO need to start doing this the right way from now on. just to make sure you are up to speed on this,look up some info on proper lab procedures for ammonia blood draws. it will help alot to back your point. it will also just give you a much clearer understanding of why this needs to be done this way too. good luck hon,marcia