How many people have seen their own heart…

Posted on September 4, 2007 by Eric

while it is outside their body?

I’ve only seen mine on an ultrasound, and that’s as close as I hope to ever see it.

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6 Responses to How many people have seen their own heart…

  1. Les Hildenbrandt says:
    September 5, 2007 at 10:50 AM

    I saw my gall bladder after it was removed. I guess thats not quite the same.

  2. Eric says:
    September 5, 2007 at 10:57 AM

    A friend may need to have his gall bladder removed soon. I suggested that he should ask to take it home. He said he’d already asked, and was told that he couldn’t have it. They said he has to sign something that gives up ownership of it or they will not perform the surgery.

    I think that’s a load of crap. If he’s ill and needs it removed, any agreement they make him sign is made under duress. It’s part of his body, so he should have all title and ownership of it. He’s perfectly willing to let them take a portion of it for pathology, but there’s no reason they need all of it.

    I suspect that the reason they won’t let him have it is that they want to make sure that if they screw up, he won’t have anything that can be used as physical evidence.

    Eric

  3. hanford says:
    September 6, 2007 at 6:35 PM

    This boy had an overworked heart … they gave him a transplant but left the old one in his body, pumping but not under a load. The original heart was able to recuperate, and they removed his transplant and reconnected his original one.

    So, they gave it to him to play with:

    http://www.babygorilla.com/warehouse/anatomy/boyheart/boyheart.html

  4. Les Hildenbrandt says:
    September 7, 2007 at 3:32 PM

    My wife had a hysterectomy last week. She joked about getting her uterus stuffed and hanging it from the trailer hitch on her mini van. The doctor brought out photos after the surgery, and I got see photos of many of her organs. The human body is amazing.

  5. Sam Levy says:
    January 27, 2008 at 8:42 PM

    I saw my heart. OK, it was a computer image. I had an injection of a short life radioactive medication and then underwent a scintillation detector scan. I don’t remember the apparatus, it was not imposing. The technician called me to the screen and showed me the image, and was able to turn it in every direction, see heres looking down your aorta!

    Then theres the intestinal scan where you take a course of clean out meds and they poke this scope with a fiber optic pipe and a light, and put up your posterior and there on a screen is the inside of your intestines, all pink and shiny. I said to the doc you mut have a steering wheel on that thing, he said I do.

  6. Eric says:
    January 27, 2008 at 11:39 PM

    I’ve seen my own heart by three different kinds of imaging equipment, ultrasound, gamma ray camera, and PET scan (Positron Emission Tomography), the latter two requiring radioisotopes. I’ve also seen my own trachea and larynx on a video monitor via a fiber-optic endoscope, and seen my own vocal cords in action.

    I haven’t yet had a colonoscopy, but I’m getting old enough that my doctor will probably want me to have one soon. I’m not looking forward to it, but having a few hours of pain every year or two seems very much preferable to having colon cancer go undetected long enough for it to metastasize.

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