The LAB

Judi, her sister Sharon, Jack, Jean, and I all had a very interesting and enlightening trip to the Cell Medicine Lab today. It's out near the canal in an area called the City of Knowledge (pic) - they only do research and testing in this area - no clinics or hospitals. This complete area was built by the Americans while they were here running the canal, so all of the buildings look alike. (pic)

The Cell Medicine Lab is in one of these buildings, and it's impressive once you get inside. We met Melisa there then another young lady took us on the tour, and we had to put on our scrubs to go in the lab rooms. (pic) Every room is very clean and protective as you might expect. I have included some pics of the lab rooms - one you see the lady working in a covered area - she is preparing the injections to be sent to the clinic - you see her holding the syringes that she prepared, and these will be placed in a cooler and taped tightly shut then taken to the clinic. We were obviously not allowed in this most secure area where they were working with the samples and cells - only pictures through the window.

They also took a picture of our own stem cells under the microscope - the cells are the wiggly lines - where there is a bright spot, that is a bubble where the cell is about to divide. They keep these cells in a liquid nitrogen freezer until they are ready to do something with them. How these cells know where to go and what to do when they get in your body, I have no idea. These lab tech's (pic) were trying to explain some of that to us while we were waiting, but it was about like me telling them how and why we run the Zone Read in American football. No intiendo!

These lab techs said it was beneficial for them to meet some of the patients because they work with your fat tissue and cells and samples all with your name on them, but they never really know who it is. So it's interesting and motivating to them when they actually see the person and hear how they are doing because of their efforts. Judi and I both had some small advancements to tell them about and to thank them for.

Keep up the good work Lab crew!

Tomorrow will be my final injection day - we have moved it up to Thursday in order to help us with the final day and preparation for a very early flight on Saturday. So PIP tomorrow!