Our exams this week covered bacteriology, pharmacology, hematology, and immunology. I would just like to say that there are about a million ways to end up with anemia and in general I would say it is unpleasant, but there were a few I thought may be fun to have. The first is G-6-PD deficiency. This enzyme when it is functioning properly helps your red cells take care of those dangerous reactive oxygen species. You know, the super evil molecules that super healthy anti-oxidants protect you from. So when there is no functioning G-6-PD then your red cells break apart and release their innards into your blood. The point here is that certain foods are high in oxidants, like fava beans, and if you have G-6-PD deficiency and you eat them you have purple urine for a while. How super awesome cool is that?? I would totally eat a ton of fava beans before any drug tests I took and then have fun getting called about it later. Could you imagine how much that would freak out a lab tech? And for boys, you could write your name in the snow in a distinct color. You could pull pranks on people when you went to their house by running out of the bathroom screaming so when they went to look they would get freaked out. There are just so many things you could do with this. I will leave your imagination up to it. Then there is methemoglobinemia. With this you have chocolate colored blood. I would also like to mess with lab techs and nurses by not taking my medication the day before I had any blood drawn. This one is less fun than the first, but still great. It also puts some merit into all of the old black and white films where they used chocolate syrup for blood. If you imagined all of those actors had methemoglobinemia than it would be perfectly accurate. I would like to point out here that when I was studying all of these anemias my brain got kind of tired and I kept saying chocolate "covered" blood. That is not what they have. That is less cool and could also be faked because anyone can get chocolate and put it on some blood. Not everyone can change their blood to look like chocolate on its own. I also wonder if people who faint at the sight of blood would faint at the sight of someone bleeding "chocolate" out of a wound. This could have therapeutic value. The other anemias are not quite so fun. In fact, I would venture to say they are not fun at all. I guess a few can give you resistance to malaria and others you have dark (but not purple) urine. Overall, learning all the anemias and how to tell them apart is annoying to say the least. And it really wouldn't be that fun to have unless you had one of the two types previously mentioned.
Monday was Ninja's birthday. We went out to eat with some family and it was very nice. What was not nice was the horrendous traffic which was made even worse due to the bad weather. What would normally be less than a 30 minute drive was almost two hours long. He started to get grumpy so I decided I need to play a game with him to keep him happily occupied. First I tried "I Spy" and picked something white. He was not particularly happy since it was snowing and he refused to play more than one round. He claims that I couldn't distinguish each snowflake from the others and so he called unfair when I told him which specific snowflake on the windshield I had spied. So I turned to the best car game ever played by me in a car: Would You Rather. I found out quite a few things about my husband in the process. He would rather have his feet tickled than give up white rice. He would rather go blind than give up white rice. He would rather murder everyone he ever met than give up white rice. He would rather have a slightly racist wife who loves him than one who does not love him, but loves his "culture". He would rather do anything than drive in the snow for hours. He would rather start balding in his teens than lose his big toes. He would rather eat boogers than drink pee. There were a whole lot more. And I really did learn quite a bit about him. I have now officially decided that extended periods spent playing Would You Rather should be a requirement for couples before they get married. There could be questions like, "Would you rather your spouse resent you forever or just clean the freaking bathroom once in a while?" or "Would you rather have children or have your wife get a small dog to love more than you?" or "Would you rather get thrown across a room into a couch at random or never get cooked cheese bread?" or "Would you rather be cold at night without covers or get hit in the face with stray elbows in the middle of the night because you have to sleep too close to share the comforter?" or "Would you rather be middle class and make more than your wife or feel less manly and live like a king on her CEO salary?" Well, that last one was a little harsh, but you get the idea. And now since I have found a therapy to help people overcome hating the sight of blood AND improved the pre-marital counselling process as well as taken two midterms this week I feel it is my right to get my not very much needed sleep.
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