I Heart This. Obviously.

Lookit all the organic pretties! (Sorry. That's a prelude to my day as Mistress of Bad Punnery, I think.) Anyway, go check these out:

Plushie Intestine + Appendix from I Heart Guts

Nice!

Remember the giant colon tunnel? I posted about it back in 07, but I don't think the post link works anymore.

Generally these big bouncy colonic fun houses are created for educational/health awareness purposes. Here's some more recent incarnations:
Take a stroll in Toronto!
Or Seattle!
Or San Francisco...a while ago.

Here's a quick video about the Canadian one:

Kind of looks like a pink member of the gourd family, doesn't it? It's got a little stalk and everything.

Then this appeared on BoingBoing a few days ago, and I nearly died of excitement:

BarRectum

Only a rectum, sadly. Imagine how much fun you could have in the entire colon! Champagne in the descending(because it's fizzy); wine in the transverse; heavy stouts and porters in the ascending; buckets and toilets in the cecum; and beds and padded walls in the appendix. No, you never escape this bar, unless the police come and perform an emergency appendectomy.

Leg - still weird. Brain - was there ever any doubt?

I've decided that my future painkiller use should be monitored. Therefore, next time I flare my way to the ER or find myself lying sideways in a hospital gown, the notebook or the laptop will be there, too.

My last trip to the ER, I got a fabulous nurse with a bottomless pocket full of morphine, an ER doctor with the hairiest hands and chest I've ever seen (bedside manner lost fifty points before he spoke, but he failed the belly-prodding test as well) and a saline drip. The morphine was wonderful, but I can't really remember how it felt. Just numbing, I guess.

For my first and only Grand Colon Tour, the nurses gave me a cocktail (that word, I love it in this context, though it needs something as effective as Molotov or gin before it to really get me going) of Versed and Demerol. According to the ineffable Internet and my nurses, Versed induces "conscious sedation before surgery to relieve anxiety and/or impair memory."*

I salivate at the thought of Versed. That is how good it was. At least, for me, and mixed with the Demerol. It did not dull all my pain, or the slightly patchy memories of lying on that procedural table, but it turned off the care switch in my brain. Nothing mattered, and moving seemed overrated. So I probably wouldn't be able to type, or write without stabbing something.

"Here comes the injection. Feels fine, slight burning sensation. A nurse gives me a waiver to sign. Haha, wait, I've changed my mind. Signing waiver...hospitals are boring, but I'm a little nervouajfdfddeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Drool, drool, drool.

Okay, so the after-effects were awful, but Versed plus Demerol minus invasive procedure equals incredible relaxation. And hey, look, some creative types figured Versed would make a super rape drug because of the induced amnesia. Oy.

I think I'll ask to be put completely under when the Grand Reunion Tour comes around in a few years.

In other news, the American Library Association publishes this. Thank god for obvious signs; ne'er will I doubt my professional path again.


*Link

It doesn't get any better than this, folks!

Don't touch my lesions, please.

This looks so great. I want to fly to Orlando.