Something rotten in the state of those lungs

A funny thing happened last week: I enjoyed a histology prac. In fact, not only did I enjoy it, I learned something!

You may recall, if you are an avid reader, that the last time I wrote about histology I clearly had no idea what I was talking about, or looking at for that matter. Since then I have somehow learned something without realizing it, since the prac last week came as a complete surprise to me.

The pathologist running the prac told me to look at the slide and note that there was an eosinophilic infiltration - and I did! He told me to note the thickened basement membrane - and I did! He told me to observe the non-necrotizing epithelioid granulomas - so I did! And then he told me to find where the ciliated epithelium had been replaced by the keratinizing squamous metaplasia - and I could! It was all a bit eerie, as if I had gone to sleep and woken up knowing a lot more stuff than I had the night before. Perhaps sleeping with my head on those textbooks every day in the library is really starting to pay off.

The other surprising thing to me is that I enjoyed the prac. This is partly from not being completely lost like I have been in the past. It also helps to sit closer to the front of the room so that my aged ears can hear what the pathologist is saying, rather than the fascinating gossip concerning my fellow students' social lives which is all I can hear if I sit up the back with the Cool Kids.

But mainly I think I enjoyed it because pathologists have fantastic vocabularies so it's very entertaining to listen to them. They use words like fulminant, nodular, and serpiginous. And they compare things to food like cheese, porridge and rind just to make it a bit more earthy. It's like listening to Shakespearean dialogue. I can understand what they are talking about but I would be unable to create anything like it myself.

Words, words, words...