Thursday, September 15, 2011

You want me to pee in what????

You ladies know what I am talking about. Men, you can just stay out of this because you have the ability to aim and this doesn't pertain to you one little bit.
We've all had to do it. You go to the doctors and they ask you to pee in a cup. Not just any cup.. a urine sample cup. Yep, the cups that are the size of a dixie cup. I dread doing this every time. It makes me laugh that they call it a "clean catch" sample. There is nothing at all clean about trying to "catch" a sample when you are a woman.
It all starts out with the cleansing towelettes they give you to make sure there is nothing on your lady bits that will contaminate the sample. I swear they put these in the freezer... they are always ice cold and as soon as I open one I take a deep breath because I know there is a very real risk of me jumping off the toilet when it touches me! For the love of all that is holy, put them in a warm environment!! Is this really so much to ask?!
The trick with doing a sample is you can't just pee in the cup. They want midstream urine. You have to START to pee then STOP then pee in the cup. This may sound easy but when you are at the doctors for a bladder infection its nearly impossible and almost always end up starting to pee on yourself while you try to position the tiny cup in the right place.
This takes me to my next complaint. Getting the cup in the right position and maintaining that position. It seems your body chooses to play games with you at this point and you start peeing in all directions. Just when you think you might be successful at getting in the right place, you realize that you are missing and completely peeing all over your hand or the outside of the cup.
At the end of it all you pray you've gotten at least a few drops in the cup and it's enough to test. There's this psychological game I have with myself. I don't want to look like a loser who can't get my aim correct and hand the nurse a sample that has an eyedropper full of pee..but I also don't like handing them a full cup either. I don't know why this is. It seems obscene to me to walk out with a cup full to the brim of yellow stuff.
This whole experience is emotionally and physically taxing. They can make TVs that can wrap around your wrist. They can fit hours and hours of hi def data on a tiny disc. BUT they can't come up with a better way for us poor women to get a urine sample.

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