The AMAS Blood Test process

I received my AMAS blood test kit on Monday from Oncolab. The processing of the blood is fairly complicated, with a requirement to cool the sample to 4 degrees Celsius for an hour and then centrifuge it for 15 minutes, and then pack it in 3lbs of dry ice and ship overnight to Oncolab.

I found that hospitals are best equipped to handle this kind of requirement vs outpatient labs such as Quest. Quest was willing to draw the blood for an outside lab (where LabCorp was not - shame on them) but when they saw the processing requirments they felt a hospital would better handle it.

So I got my signature on the requisition form for Oncolab and a script from my gyn for a separate blood test I want (CBC) and was all ready to visit Paoli Hospital for the blood drawing today when I realized before I headed there that I might need a prescription for the AMAS blood test for the hospital's "registration process" and one phone call to the hospital lab confirmed this. Doh. Could have gotten that yesterday from gynecologist but forgot about all the red tape that Pennsylvania imposes.

What is really irritating about this is - no doctor has ordered this test. I want this test ON MY OWN. I should NOT need a doctor's permission to get it. What is wrong with this state? It's a freaking BLOOD test. It's not surgery for crying out loud.

So since my surgeon's office is next to the hospital where I am going I thought, I'll just call them and see if I can pick up a script for it from them. I got a cool response from the nurses with a curt "we can't order tests like that - the doctor will have to call you about it" - grrrr Hello?? You AREN'T ordering the test. Come on and give me a break here. You, as nurses, have to know what a pain in the ass this state is about it. Just stamp the damn script. It's not for controlled substance drugs or something. Really now.

So I found in the mean time, I can call my gyn when they open shortly and they can fax the script to a number at Paoli for registration so it will be there already when I arrive. And my gyn is very cooperative about all this and have no problem issuing these senseless scripts for me, which is more than I can say about the snobby surgeon's office. One demerit for surgeon's office.

I have to consider the fact that the surgeon's office is only interested in things that involve cutting things out of your body. They could care less about whether you have cancer in your blood and in fact, they really don't want to have you find this out with a blood test when they could use their preferred method of RIPPING out some lymph nodes just to TEST. How barbaric and it is not even 100% accurate. They rip out those sentinel lymph nodes and if they test clear of cancer it STILL does not mean that cancer has not circulated elsewhere so what a wasted procedure.

And here's a thought. If they find cancer cells in your lymph nodes - isn't that what they are supposed to be doing? Filtering bad stuff? Isn't that where you would also find bacteria if you have an infection? Seems to me that sentinel lymph node test is sort of unnecessary and since they can't put the lymph nodes BACK I am then down a few lymph nodes for fighting infections.

The AMAS blood test will see if I have the Anti-Malignin Antigen in my blood which is a very good cancer marker test and does not involve removing a part of my body I don't wish to part with to check.