Picture yourself in a long, rectangular room; windows on the long sides; the smell of formaldehyde in the air and what sounds like a large social gathering in full swing.  Now picture 14 cadavers scattering around the room on tables and yourself standing over one of these cadavers.  In your right hand you hold a scalpel and in your left...a human heart.  If you can picture this you will have some idea of how my 1pm anatomy dissection went today.

     Some might feel weak in the knees at the thought of this.  Some might be less than impressed, and some (like myself) were in awe.  Visualizing the human heart out of the chest, and also holding it in your hand is a thing of beauty.  Strange to say so?  Maybe, but when you begin to think about how the heart works and  how it is a an exquisitely designed piece of machinery that beats for 70-80-90..yes even 100 years in some people, you begin to see and appreciate the miracle that it is.  

     I have been interested in the heart for some time.  I developed a passion for EKGs while working in the E.D.  I've done chest compressions on people and literally watched a man's vessel close off (on an EKG) just minutes before he was whisked off to the cath lab.  

     This past week we have learned about the physiology behind circulation and heart pumping and today we began again with something called "baroreceptors."  Baroreceptors are what help your heart adjust to changes in blood pressure.  They are what keep our hearts in homeostasis and with every beat they are tweaking blood pressure up or down, depending on what the body needs.  

     We split up the dissection and my turn was in opening the left atrium.  After making a small hook-like incision, I reflected back the sides of the atrium and put my finger into the chamber,  through the mitral valve and into the left ventricle.  Incredible!!!!  The man to whom this heart belonged to died at a fairly young age and he had something called Left Ventricular Hypertrophy ( a thickening of the muscular wall of the left ventricle.  I also reached in to the aorta down to the aortic valve.  Now, the mitral valve opened without a whole lot of resistance.  The aortic valve, however, was almost like cartilage from the knee or shoulder - hard and resistant to my finger going through.  "Aortic stenosis!" I announced to my group, and then one by one they each felt the valve.  We had figured out the pathology (at least at our present knowledge) of this man's LVH.  

     My time in 1st semester is drawing to a close.  There are little more than 3 weeks of class left, followed by Mini 3 and the final.  Please be praying for focus, stamina and drive for me in the coming weeks.  Thanks for reading.  

     John