Lab Rat

Yesterday, I went back to National Kidney Institute for the HER-2 Neu lab test. It was quite a trip. From the office, I passed by St. Luke's Hospital for my slides and doctor's orders. It took me longer to find a parking space than picking up the slides and the orders.

At NKI, waiting for my number to be called also proved to be a longer wait than having myself interviewed and then having my specimen received.

This morning, I went to another laboratory to have my mandatory blood test before each chemo cycle. My veins are already collapsing from the chemo drugs. The technician, who's an expert at blood extraction, can't locte my veins on my right arm. Since the left arm can't be used for extraction, we ended up extracting blood from the vein on my wrist where the last chemo cycle was admistered. A couple of minutes after the extraction, my vein swelled to a quarter of an inch thick, but only an inch either way from the extraction point.

This got me thinking, if these minor hitches got me complaining a lot, just imagine the pile of complaints of the lab rats if they can talk! What can I say? Go rats?! *LOL*