Fantastic voyage: science fiction exploration of microscopic worlds

Fantastic Voyage

[hs130, section: ____ ]

I walked into my office at 8:00 AM with an empty mind. I was worried about the transmission that I needed to air in two days. When my boss asked me that morning about what the transmission would be, I lied and said, "Let that be a surprise!" I quickly logged online for ideas. Just then, I was interrupted by a man who wanted to speak to me. Annoyed at his persistent nagging, I grabbed my camera and decided to follow him to where he wanted to take me. During our ride, he asked me the most bizarre question, "can you film inside a patient? The doctors can't seem to understand what's going on in her body." My reaction was rather quick and loud, "Are you insane?" He pointed to a medium sized box in his backpack, "Whenever you're ready!"

He escorted me to the private wing at the hospital. We both sneaked in to room 113 and locked the door. In the room lay a middle aged woman who looked very pleased to see me. "I had been waiting," she said. My experience inside that room was almost unreal. I underwent a miniaturization process in which I was reduced to a size of only 8 microns. I was put in a syringe and injected into the femoral vein, from where I started my journey.

Landing in this apparently low-pressure vessel, I had to grab the sides to balance myself. I couldn't believe how small I had become -- almost just as big as a red blood cell! I quickly reached out for my torch to analyze the map that I had been given. Staring down at it, I immediately located where I was standing. I decided to follow the red blood cells and the slightly larger white blood cells.

Moving ahead, I noticed that there were smaller blood vessels that branched out from larger ones. These vessels were just my size and some red blood cells squeezed their way into them. I learned that in order for these cells to pass through, they needed to display a lot of flexibility, just the way that the red blood cells had. At these points, the turbulence in blood was the greatest, since cells had to neatly arrange themselves to pass through which led to a lot of bombardment. (Kumar, Abbas & Fausto, 2010)

As I advanced my journey, I reached a larger tunnel that had been labeled as the External Iliac Vein on my map. Travelling through these vessels I noticed something strange. Each vein was accompanied by a similar, but larger and more muscular, vessel. The blood in these vessels was flowing at a speed fast enough for me to feel it against the walls of the veins. I checked my map to discover what these vessels were supposed to be. Strangely, these vessels even held the same names but were labeled as an artery instead of a vein. These arteries even gave out a sound every time blood flowed past them. It just clicked to me then that this is probably the sound that doctors feel for when they check for a pulse. (Hansen et al., 2002)

It was amazing how the blood vessels just kept getting larger in size. Eventually, I reached the Common iliac Vein. Glancing around, I could begin to appreciate the human intestine. As the vessels grew larger, I noticed tiny little balls that clenched to vessel and abdominal walls. These were labeled as lymph nodes and their density kept increasing as well. Amused at all my new discoveries, I advanced ahead to the Inferior Vena Cava. (Hansen et al., 2002)

The posterior abdominal wall consists of many muscles which were named as, Psoas major and minor, the transverse abdominis and the iliacus. Occasionally, with every deep inspirations and expirations, these muscles would also support respiration. Higher up in the abdominal wall, I could see Mrs. X's kidneys! Not too far ahead, was her liver on my left side. This large organ almost extended transversely throughout the abdomen. Inside the liver were sinusoids, the entire picture of which looked like as if looking down from an airplane at a suburban neighborhood. Beneath the liver was a pouch which I guessed to have been the gallbladder. (Hansen et al., 2002)

Eventually, I reached the diaphragm. The diaphragm was a muscular organ that separated the chest from the abdomen. This muscle sheet consisted of three tunnels. These tunnels allowed the inferior vena cava, the aorta and the esophagus to pass through. As I crossed over to the other side, I noticed that the chest consisted only of two main organs: the lungs and the heart. It quickly came to my notice that something was wrong with the lower lobe of the right lung! I immediately knew then, that this was what must have been making Mrs. X sick. I quickly traced my way to this part to take a closer look. (Hansen et al., 2002)

The inferior vena cava had the lowest pressure when compared to all the other vessels that I had been to. On reaching the right atrium, I was immediately pumped into the right ventricle and instantly out again into the pulmonary artery. This vessel was much different when compared to the veins; it had no valves and its walls were thicker and it consisted of a higher pressure. I finally made it to the right lung and traced my way down to the lower lobe. (Hansen et al., 2002)

The vessels here were more permeable and consisted of the largest amount of white blood cells. Looking at the cells up close, they did not all look the same. Some were larger, some had bi-lobed nucleuses and some had multi-lobed nucleuses. Some white blood cells were carrying weapons (antibodies) and some were engulfing the microbes. These cells resembled soldiers regarding their organization skills. With the arrival of each white blood cell, they would stick to the epithelium of the vessel wall, roll over and then would squeeze through to the site of the infection. (Kumar et al., 2010)