Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Hi, I'm a Lymph node

So I'm no nurse. No doctor. But this afternoon I got to learn about the human organ - the Lymph node. These "nodes" are found all through the body and act as a "trap" for foreign particles. So when you get sick or are exposed to some kind of bacteria or something, the body tries to send this to one of these nodes. The nodes have these vessels to provide access to it. So this foreign object gets trapped and then surrounded by lots of cells and the cells continue to grow to keep this object trapped until it can process it and better protect the body the next time it is exposed to the foreign object. This is the job of the white blood cells. Children are more prone to "swollen glands" because their bodies haven't been exposed to as much crap as adults. I also learned that a healthy person could have an enlarged node because of a previous infection. Do you know how many lymph nodes the typical person has? I didn't. I had to look it up. Between 500-600? Simply amazing. I'm sure there is much more to learn but I found it fascinating. I learned something today that I didn't know before. The human body, my human body is SIMPLY AMAZING. It is a miracle. Eyes, heart, lungs, muscle, brain. And to think I can push this body to swim, then bike, and then run. It is amazing. I'm grateful for my health. I really am. I wake up every single more with a full heart thanking my Heavenly Father that I am healthy.

1 comment:

Shelley said...

How God figured it out that we need all of these things and how they work so well in harmony is simply amazing to me too. God is good!