Having had tubes of assorted sizes and shapes snaked into my nose, stomach (through the mouth), urethra, rectum, and arteries.....the worst was and is the urethra with the stomach a close second.. Not that having a tube up your ass or down your nose is any prize either but........Oddlly enough, a heart cath where they run the tube through your arteries is painless.

One of the reasons that hospital patients are not allowed guns is that most of us would shoot the assistants on these tests...sometimes the Docs as well. I'd shoot whichever one kept saying things like....."Just relax now....Don't tense up....Relax....it will only be a bit longer....Oh it doesn't hurt that bad...." Right. They'd be dead as soon as I could take aim. It's obvious to me that most of these yahoos have never had the test themselves!

For sheer pain though, none of the above can hold a candle drawing blood for Arterial Blood Gases unless it's an ABG draw by a bad Phlebotomist (the tech who draws blood). I had one that took the tech 15 minutes and they never did get a good sample which meant someone had to come back and do it again...this took only two minutes. I was at the point where I would have just preferred they slice my wrists (which is the draw site for ABG's).

Spaw