Pass The Cup

It's a question on every one's mind, I'm certain. You have been there, I'm positive.

Imagine yourself sitting with your legs spread open in a public bathroom, holding a sterile cup under your stream of urine, trying your best not to wet your hand. You start to pee, hitting your hand (of course) and then repositioning the cup. You stop peeing, you bring the cup up to eye level to judge the amount of urine in the cup.

How much IS enough? You don't want to under fill the cup... that's got to be a sign of bad manners or ignorance or something awful, right? But on the other hand, you don't want to put too much in the cup either!

You put the cup back between your legs, wet your hand again, and finally get what seems to be an appropriate amount in the cup. Until you bring it to eye level again and it seems like too much now!

So you dump some out.

And now there isn't enough.

Would you like to know just how much is enough for a urine specimen cup? Sure you do!

Usually, and this is based on my personal experience as a urine dipper/micro-analyzer/urine culturer at Super Huge Clinic and not on any fact or written medical guideline (merely my own opinion as someone who sees a lot of piss during the day), I say aim for 1/3-1/2 full in the specimen cup.

Wanna know WHY? I'm telling you anyways, so listen up:

The pee is first "dipped" to test for leukocytes, blood, glucose, pH, and some other junk. The dip strip is about 4 inches long (ours gets run through a nifty bar code based auto scan machine!). The best way to make a 4 inch long flexible dip strip get covered uniformly in pee pee is to tilt the cup. Not enough urine makes me work to hard. Too much urine means that I get pee on my gloved hand, the counter, my shoes, my scrubs- you get the picture.

Next, if you have wonkie outta-whack pee (highly technical term there) it will either need (a) a micro (looking at your tinkle after spinning it in a centrifuge to see all the nasty in it at 100x magnification or (b) a culture. That means a little more pee than just a spritz at the bottom.

Lastly, if your pee is really messed up- like loads of blood, nitrites, leukocytes and that whole deal, then option (b) will be performed and you will have your wee-wee sent off in a "culture" tube. The culture tube is the same size as a smaller blood vile and works pretty much the same way- through a vacuum that slurps the pee into it and mixing it with a preservative. You need more than a sprinkle for this, most definitely.

Ok, so perhaps I got a little more technical than I was going for in all of that, but I just can't help myself sometimes. Everyone of us has had that moment in the bathroom wondering just how much is enough and how much is too much.

And if you were wondering, yes the lab tech will laugh at you if you send out an overflowingly full cup of tinkle. Especially is it is wet on the outside. Because we know you didn't wash the pee off the side of the cup. And if you hands are wet then you are just waaay gross. Because it's not water- oooh no! We know better.

And don't hide your pee cup in a paper towel. You made that whizz, be proud and show it off!

And if you are on your period TELL THE TECH... no body wants you to pee Hawaiian Punch in a cup- fo' reals yo!

Maybe tomorrow I will cover the do's and don'ts of all tests involving poop!

--The Milk Maid says she's just pissing off these days.

(acne cures for all!)