Image taken from Idexx website.
Everyone was busy cleaning and doing their scheduled maintenance jobs when I hurried into the room. Great, I’m late again and Mrs. Simpson clearly noticed even though she didn’t look my way. I glanced at the schedule to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Running and Cleaning Maintenance on the Idexx Catalyst one. Okay, that’s pretty straightforward. They showed us at the beginning of the semester what to do. I grabbed the SOP and started reading. Take the diluent and control vial from the freezer…60-90 minutes ahead! Shoot, I was going to run out of time. I took the vials out of the freezer and then had an idea. I bet they would warm up faster next to skin, so I put them in my jean pockets and sat down to read through the rest of the instructions.
After reading everything through, the vials felt warmer. Okay, I can get through this. Careful to follow the instructions, I slowly inverted the two vials once, tipped them back up and then tapped the control vial on the counter gently. Then, I took the seal and stopper off of both and grabbed a sterile syringe from the bin. Everyone else seemed to be working away at their tasks but, when I looked at the clock, I realized I am still behind. 3 mL, okay, I drew about that out and added it to the control vial. Putting the stopper back on, I held it in place and then placed it on the slow rocker. I went to help Sue with her clean-up tasks, but kept an eye on the time. After 45 minutes, I hurried over to get the control fluid and set up the Catalyst One analyzer for quality control. After the machine finished running, I looked down at the display in dismay and groaned. Error. It did not calibrate properly. Mrs. Simpson heard my groan and looked straight at me. I could see her expression go from curious to annoyed in the space of seconds. Now she was headed my way.