Insides Outside

When I get an idea for a blog post, I tend to put it in the critical blogging path, meaning I put off blogging until I get the big idea out. Sometimes this is good, sometimes I just feel guilty for not updating more often. I know that I like the blogs I read to get updated as often as possible. This week was one where I put all the mental and prep work toward one post. This one.
So you can see my guts.

I had a few reasons for wanting to share my CT scans (that's CAT scans for you old school folk):

1. When do I not share?
2. Update on the pulmonology visit
3. Thanks for the second opinion
4. Cool pictures

Thanks to being maid of honor in a radiologist's wedding, I got a great second opinion on my condition. It made me more confident in the initial report and my pulmonologist said, "well you've certainly made my job easy." This is why they sent me for a lung scan after not finding kidney stones in the ab scan. The grey blob to the left of the arrow is a sequestration of some lung material which is not properly connected to the rest of my lungs. The circle with the orange * is my descending aorta. The bit coming off of it pointed out by the red arrow shouldn't be there.


You can see it better here. It's the bright little barrel in the lower left lung near the spine. The aorta is the tube in front of the spine. This one is brighter from the contrast die. The sequestered bit is fed by the aortic branch instead of the pulmonary artery and does not discharge lung mucous properly. Whenever I think of lung fluid, I think of my internship at Owens Corning Fiberglas (yes, 1 s). They had barrels of "simulated lung fluid" to check to see if their products dissolved in it because if the glass dissolved, it wouldn't cause cancer. Unlike asbestos. My problem, it is not cancer. It's really not even a problem.


It's only a problem if it gets infected. So far so good. Probably a good idea if I don't start smoking. Then I mentioned that I don't get restful sleep (without proper acupuncture) and the pulmonologist said, "Tell me about that! That's much more interesting!" I have a new sleep study coming up in a week or so. Whee. In the meantime, here are some more pictures.

This one inspired me to start taking screen shots.


Because I think it looks like The Scream.


Except for the giant heart that looks like a bag. So in this one, the heart looks a lot more like a heart. And there's something I circled in orange that looks like a basement cat, which is to say 2 glowing eyes. The liver is the other big grey blob on the left, I'm pretty sure. I also like the rib slices.



Here's another vertical slice from the abdominal scan. It's interesting because it's the slice that shows a lot of identifiable parts. Liver, small intestine. Ok, so 2 big organs that are really identifiable. And some bones and leg muscles.



For the curious, Here's the horizontal slice showing the location of the vertical slice. And you can see my boobs.



Here's a very similar shot with the contrast dye which shows the blood vessels branching into the lungs. And more body fat. Yeesh.



And one more vertical slice showing cool organs. I can ID the liver (it's ubiquitous!), the kidneys (which look like embryos in this slice), the lumbar vertebrae of the spine (bright!), ribs, large intestine, blood vessels. Props to anyone who can identify the mystery blob on the right. It's under the left lung, opposite the liver. Is it, by chance, my spleen?


Cool, eh?