Authored by Justin Yuen on Aug 29th 2010, 02:08
Shoulld be asleep, but was awakened by the nurse changing my IV (intravenous therapy) fluids. Can't fall asleep right away, so figured I'd post some trivia here. I've learned a lot from my first 3 days here in the hospital. Some of the more interesting bits which I didn't know, or forgot since my last biology class in high school:
- The bone marrow is responsible for the production of blood cells, including red blood cells (primarily for transporting oxygen throughout the body), white blood cells (for protecting against infectious diseases and foreign materials), and platelets (responsible for blood clots). Unfortunately, blood tests have found that my platelet counts are low, so yesterday, the oncologist took a bone marrow biopsy to investigate.
- Bone marrow biopsies are no fun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow_examination. Unlike a chest tissue biopsy, there is pain involved due to the fact that the nerves in bones cannot be numbed using Novocain. Overall, an awkward, uncomfortable, but necessary experience. Pain is a funny thing though. You always feel so great when you've made it through, and each time it becomes easier to deal with.
- In comparison to the bone marrow biopsy, the chest biopsy was completely painless, despite the giant core needle that was inserted into my chest cavity. And awkward site, especially for my relatively rare case in which the needle would be pushed around while protruding from my chest by every pump of my heart. Pretty fascinating stuff. Both the chest and bone marrow biopsies leave tiny wounds which clot in a matter of minutes and leave nothing but a relatively minor, dull pain afterward.
- Was having a conversation with one of the women who helped transport me from my room to the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). She was wearing a Spongebob Squarepants shirt. I told her a like it, and she pointed out that even though people don't always admit it, there's a kid in everybody, and this part of them always could use a little cheering up. I agree, and had a very enjoyable conversation with here on the way back. I've met so many interesting and caring people here.
- While the EKG (electrocardiography) specialist was applying the aparatus to my chest, I asked him what EKG stood for, she told me "electro cardio gram". I asked why it was e-K-g rather than e-C-g, and she had no idea. When I finally got internet access (free wifi throughout the hospital!), I looked it up on Wikipedia. Aparently, EKG is an abbreviation of the German variant of the word, "elektrokardiogramm", commonly used to disambiguate it from EEG (Electroencephalography), which deals with the electric waves in the brain.
- I've also been brushing up on my anaotomy studies from RISD, and am happily finding both that I remember a great deal and can still draw a skeleton and the surface muscles pretty accurately, and that my knowledge of these parts has helped me explain to the doctors what I've been feeling more accurately.
- Ok, back to bed. Hope you guys enjoyed all the medical trivia. Plenty more to come!
i like the medical trivia.
hey man, that's a useful tutorial for some Biology idiots....such like me =]
Justin, I knew the EKG vs ECG one. That always boggled my mind as well.