I work in a medical library, going on 10 years, and going by what I’ve seen thumbing through the books and journals, pretty much all of it.
ETA: not that they’re mutually exclusive. “Let me help you” obviously is the primary concern in most cases, but “I should write this up” seems to always be a thought running in the background. There’s someone, somewhere researching pretty much anything and everything at all times.
It looks just like half of this, but very red, and not drawn (link is an illustration).
Personally I don’t find it disgusting at all, but I see gross medical stuff all the time. We always warn the new employees, “Whatever you do, do NOT thumb through the dermatology books. Trust me.”
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It’s quite possible the coughed-up bloot clot also contained mucoid and cellular elements and had begun to organize (i.e. with ingrowth of fibroblasts and small blood vessels), explaining why it held together while being expelled.*
While people don’t “cough up a lung”, it’s possible to cough hard enough to herniate out a segment of lung between your ribs (do not try this at home).
“The woman’s lung tissue slipped through the space between two of her ribs – the ninth intercostal space, to be exact. It’s actually somewhat similar to a NEJM case study from last month, in which a woman’s body “swallowed” one of her breast implants while she was doing Pilates – in that case, the woman’s implant slipped between two of her ribs and was sent into her pleural cavity, or the space between her lungs. (Maybe those two should form a support group.)”
*one hopes this specimen was preserved for future study by eager med students.
I guess I am not understanding. Was that a picture of the guys actual bronchial tree or something that was inside his bronchial tree? And how was it a solid thing? Amazing to know the human body can do these things.
Oh, and Sunny I knew someone who cracked their neck coughing. It was an actual fracture. She, too had pneumonia.
Blood filled that much of his lung and congealed, like Jell-O in a mold; violent coughing knocked it loose, up his trachea and out of his mouth. I’m certain it was every bit as unpleasant as it sounds and more.
Life ain’t pretty. It’s fortunate that we can get somewhat desensitized to it, or we could never cope. But get too desensitized, and we lose our empathy for suffering.
Who the fuck came up with this whole life thing, anyway??? :mad: