My love of gore

[Misty-Eyed]

So I thought I'd share this with you guys because I thought some of you might find it interesting!

I'm currently at uni studying Biomedical Sciences and at the moment I was lucky enough to get a 10 week placement every Monday at my local hospital in the Histology department. Histology is the study of cells from tissues. So basically.. it's where all those biopsies from colonoscopies and where your discarded parts of intestines go once they are removed. Then the tissues are looked at carefully and parts are selected to be made into slides which are then looked at by a consultant to look for cancer, CD, UC or anything else they can see from characteristics under the microscope.

Obviously it's not just gastro tissues they look at, but having Crohn's myself, I find it sooo interesting to see what happens to the biopsies etc. I think a lot of people don't give it much thought and just wait for the report to come back for the prognosis. Everyone there seemed to find it weird that I wasn't grossed out by seeing whole colons being delivered in a bucket and then looked at. But hey, I have had my own copy of colonoscopy pics since I was 13 so I guess I'm used to it. It's certainly given me a new found respect to all those people who work behind the scenes in making us better. Andddd it's true, I just can't stay away from the hospital.

 

[Peaches]

That is *so* cool!! My younger daughter would LOVE that! And yes, I have wondered how all that stuff gets looked at. Whole colons though..ehhhhk!!

 

[RAW]

That's so exciting, I wish I could see too. I love that stuff. Congrats on the placement.

 

[KiwiJo]

fun! When i had my first resection i got asked if I had any specific religious requests relating to my surgery. randomly I asked if I could please see the piece of intestine they removed, and even more randomly they said yes! For a few years I had a photo of me with with intestine stuck to my toilet wall. very interesting it was!

P.S. This post first got my attention because there is a little town in the South Island of New Zealand called ....wait for it...Gore! My nana lives there, lol. I thought it was funny that you said you loved "gore"

 

[Nytefyre]

Fun!

I wanted to keep my insides from my resection but when I woke up, of course I had forgotton about the whole brilliant idea. I wanted them floating in a jar of solution, sitting on my desk. Like a reminder type of thing.

 

[beth]

I now have that vision of a colon swimming about in a bucket! Gross, but kewl!

 

[Misty-Eyed]

No, Kiwi, never been lucky enough to travel that far! I bet it is a lovely place though.

But yeah, whole colons are huge! Apparently things get messy when it come to cleaning them though, even with prep. :/ you can imagine, huh? lol. One of my friend's works in the histology lab at the specialist hospital I go to for my Crohn's so he sees A LOT of bowels including mega colons. They are apparently massive.

It's also just interesting how they go from a big bit of tissue to a very small amount so they can look at the cells. It's amazing what cells can tell you about a person's health.

But yes, I'm really enjoying the placement although my my ears are always pricking up when they are talking about sigmoid polyp. lol. Just praying I'll be able to get a job there when I finish my degree.

 

[Pirate]

I think it would look just like great big night crawlers that we use to disect in high school.
I wonder how well they would work for fishing bait. Probably catch Tilipia (fish) cause thier a poop fish, but that's another story.

 

[Misty-Eyed]

Being allergic to the outdoors, Pirate, I wouldn't know! Let me know if you try it out though!

 

[Pirate]

How are you allergic? Like to the sun? I will break out in really itchy hives like rash if I go swimming in a lake and if I am in direct sunlight to long without sunscreen.

 

[Misty-Eyed]

No, like as soon as I'm outside I need to go to the toilet lol. I was just trying to be funny and failed! lol

But once I went on holiday in Spain and the skin on my legs started to resemble crocodile skin. The Spanish doc told me that Pred and the sun are a very bad combination. No one had ever told me that!

I do also have extremely transparent skin (you can see all my veins, very sexy, I know) and burn realllly easily. I'm not sure if that's a Crohn's thing or a past med thing or a me thing though.

My word, I do ramble on. Long and short of it, I like to stay in as it's just easier lol.

 

[CrohnieCarolyn]

I wanted to keep my 18 inches of small intestine they removed to send to my ex who tossed me out on my ear when I was so sick - "Here's a wee present for you lover boy!" "Fry it up with some mushrooms and onions"...lol