Fun-a-day 7: Gram Stain

Today I decided to do my "interpretation" of a microbiology Gram Stain.  Gram Stains are one of the most common stains in the medical lab, and are used to differentiate different types of bacteria.  Almost all bacteria are classifies as "gram positive" (which stain purple), or "gram negative", which stain pink.  Furthermore, most bacteria that cause disease in humans are either "rods" (long and thin, like a sausage), or "cocci", (which are little dots or spheres).

I think it was a gram stain that I performed many years ago that was part of my inspiration for my fun-a-day project.  I've been a stay-at-home mom for the last 4 years, but recent events have had me spending a great deal of time thinking about gram stains.

You really can't tell from looking at a gram stain what the bacteria is.  There are so many that can cause infections in people.  We have them living all over and in our bodies, and some of these critter can be "good guys" one day, "bad guys" the next.  Staphylococcus aureus is one of these, seen as purple (gram positive) clusters of cocci.  They remind me of grape clusters.  They normally live happily on the skin, but can infect wounds and other body parts.  The chain of purple dots is Streptococcus bacteria.  There are multiple types of "Strep", and they can cause Strep throat, as well as many other infections.  They remind me of a string of beads.  The big long purple rods are my "take" on Clostridium bacteria.  Different species of Clostridium can cause botulism and tetanus, among other illnesses.  As you may know, they can be found in the soil, and can be very hardy organisms.

Gram negative (pink) bacteria include the rods like E.coli (Escherichia coli) and Salmonella (2 groups at the top), and cocci, like Neisseria, who like to hang out in pairs (far right).  E.Coli is another one of those good guy/bad guy bacteria that normally live quite happily in our lower intestine, but can also cause bladder infections (other bacteria can too), among other things.  A particular strain of E.coli, the 0157:H7 strain, is the one that can cause severe life-threatening illness in undercooked ground beef.  You probably know Salmonella as a cause of "food poisoning".  Different species of Neisseria can cause gonorrhea and meningitis.

The last bacteria, lower center, is one that I myself have never seen, that of Vibrio Cholerae, the cause of Cholera.  This is what's causing so much misery to those in Haiti right now.  It's a curved (like a comma) gram negative rod.

Gram stains can not be used as a sure way to identify the exact species of bacteria that is making someone sick, but can help the doctors know which antibiotic to use, as many are targeted towards these broad classifications.  It gives both the doctor and the microbiologist a really good idea of what the bacteria is and additional tests (culture and sensitivity) can further identify the organism and determine further treatment.

Once again, this is all for fun and shouldn't be used in any other way.  You really shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet anyway, right??  But hope you're having as much fun reading it as I am sewing and writing it!  As a stay at home mom, it's a good way to keep my noodle working, although lately middle school algebra has been using those neurons too :-).

Fun-a-day 6: Giardia

Again, Giardia isn't such a fun thing to have, but it sure is a really fun (a day) thing to look at under a microscope!  They look like little faces (feces faces ?!?! oh I'm going to get in trouble for that)  looking at you, almost cartoon-ish.

Giardia is the most common parasitic infection of people in the United States, as well as much of the world.  People become infected by drinking contaminated water, such as from streams and lakes.  Beavers are a common carrier of the parasite, so anywhere a beaver may live is likely to have Giardia.  Dogs and other animals can also become infected, and can spread the disease through their feces, or stool (so can people).

Sorry, the medical technologist's world is full of all sorts of "gross" things, as we regularly examine stool, urine, blood, sputum, and various other bodily fluids.  And indeed, Giardia is usually found during an "O and P", or Ova and Parasite stool test.

Stool certainly looks much better on a microscope under 100 power, but I decided to take a little creative liberty and just used a little pretty green thread as a background.  I was going to fill in the giardia with a pastel purple, but when I looked through all of my thread, I realized that I not only don't have pastel purple, but I do not own a single spool of any pastel thread!!  Hmmm  learned something about myself today...

Also, I have a few fun pictures to share with you too.  The local paper mentioned that there's now a huge elk herd that's come down very close to town with all the cold weather we've had.  I took a trip out to see them, and here's a few pictures the kids and I took yesterday!  (Beth, this is where your "manly camera" would have come in handy LOL).  Enjoy!

Fun-a-day 5: "Poik"

Today I stitched up my version of poikilocytosis (such a fun word), or abnormal shapes of red blood cell (RBC).  In normal blood, the red cells are all pretty much the same size and shape. In the middle is a normal RBC.  Various medical conditions can cause the red blood cells to become abnormally shaped.  When a medical technologist looks at the blood smear, he or she will rate the amount of "poik", and list all of the abnormal shapes he or she sees, sometimes rating the amount too.  Certain abnormalities can indicate a medical condition.  I'll list the most common medical conditions in parentheses, but once again, I'm not a doctor, so keep that in mind.  Also, some have multiple causes.  There are also "medical" terms for these, and "common" terms, which I interchange.

At the top, working around clockwise, the little cell at "12" is a sperocyte (auto-immune hemolytic anemia), sickle cell (sickle cell anemia), target cell (seen in many anemias, including liver failure), acanthocyte (severe liver disease), stomatocyte (hereditary stomatocytosis), elliptocyte (also common in many types of anemias, including iron deficiency), schistocytes (red blood cell fragments, may be seen in "DIC", or disseminated intravascular coagulation), teardrop cell (severe iron deficiency), and lastly, a nucleated red blood cell (these are immature red blood cells that are normally found in the bone marrow, but in severe anemia when the body is trying hard to produce more RBC's FAST, they can sometimes be seen in the blood).

Phew!  I hope I spelled all of these correctly!  I think it took me longer to write the blog than to sew them!!

One thing I'm learning about "thread painting", is that I really need one of those "open toe" feet on my sewing machine so I can clearly see what I'm doing!  Also trying to fill in an area with dense thread sewing is hard!  My machine doesn't like it either!  Hmmm maybe that's why they make embroidery machines.  But I'm SO not going there!  And it's Wednesday, so I'm linking up with "Freshly Pieced" blog for WIL Wednesday, since this is indeed a WIP!!  Head over there to see what others are working on!

Oh, and here's a few pictures I've taken the last few mornings on my daily walk with my dog.  We've had a long cold snap, that's produced some amazingly beautiful creations...

Fun-a-day 4: Anemia

OK, so maybe anemia isn't so fun, but it can be fun to look at on a blood smear, and fun to paint with thread...

Anemia, is essentially a lack of red blood cells, or a disorder of them.  Sudden anemia can occur after a trauma, such as a car accident, major operation, or childbirth (which can be rather traumatic).  A sudden loss of blood really doesn't show up on a blood smear.  The hospital's instruments detect the blood loss in the CBC.  More commonly though, anemia takes a bit of time, because it's due to diet (as in iron deficiency), genetics (as in sickle cell anemia), or due to various other medical problems.

The most common anemia I saw was iron deficiency, which is very common in women, especially when they're pregnant.  It's something I myself have faced, so I thought I'd do a quilt block of what it looks like on the slide.

The red blood cells in iron deficiency anemia are smaller than normal (microcytic), and have less hemoglobin, so they are paler (hypochromic), and look like thin rings.  Instead of being nice equal sized, they can also start varying in size (anisocytosis), and shape (poikilocytosis - isn't that a FUN word?).

Stay tuned for tomorrow.  I think I'm going to do a "poik" block... all the different abnormal RCB shapes.

And it's Tuesday, so Quilt Story is having their fabric Tuesday link party.  Head over there for some inspiration and fun!

"Eos and Basos"

The last 2 types of white blood cells we have in our body's blood are eosinophils and basophils.  Once again, they fight infection, but the eosinphils, especially, play a big part in fighting parasites, and in allergy response.  The eosinophils are my favorite "cell", as they love the eosin dye, which is a vibrant pink-ish orange that just isn't in a thread color pallet.  These are the 2 least common white cells.

Fun-a-day 2, more WBC's

Today I sewed a few more white blood cells that we all have in our body.  Along with the red blood cell, and platelets, here are the lymphocyte, on the left, and the monocyte, on the right.  Again, this is my interpretation of "normal".

Briefly, lymphocytes are recognized as a main type of cell that kills viruses, and include T-cells and B-cells.  I like to think of monocytes as a kind of "garbage collector", as among other immune system duties, they're good at "phagocytosing", or eating up infected cells and foreign debris in the body.  Lymphocytes are the second most common white blood cell (WBC), and monocytes the third.

Unfortunately, I just have to add, in this litigious day and age, that I am NOT a current medical professional, this is an art blog post, and in no way should you use any of this information for anything even remotely medical related.  Whew...

On a more positive note, I'm having a really "fun-a-day" time with this, and am excited about doing more of these.  I also am realizing that I need to buy a pair of curved embroidery scissors, as my little straight ones just can't cut the thread close enough to the surface of the fabric.  After changing my spool and bobbin a whole bunch of times already for this project, I'm learning that I'd better get used to that too!!

See ya tomorrow!

Happy 2011, and quilt world meets lab world...

I hope all of you had a great time ringing in the new year!  Let's all hope that it's a kinder, gentler one for everyone!  We let the kids stay up until midnight, then all went to bed a few minutes later!  They should go to sleep easy tonight, especially since they spent the whole day sledding behind our house!

As mentioned, I'm starting my "fun-a-day" project today!  I've already done a little "prep" work, but today I started in earnest.

I'm calling it "quilt world, meet medical lab world".  Part of my medical technologist world was spent looking at countless  microscope slides of blood and other body fluids.  More often than not, they were stained with vibrant dyes and stains to differentiate cells, organisms and cellular structures.  A prerequisite for medical technologists is a color-blind test.  Even before I started school, we had to be tested, because the ability to see color correctly is essential.  One of my favorite aspects of that job, and of quilting is the variety of colors I got to work with each day.

So, for the next 31 days, I'll try to post my thread and fabric interpretation of different things I saw as a medical technologist, starting with this one I did today:

It's a "normal" blood smear.  The red circles are red blood cells, the tiny purple dots are platelets, and the bigger cell in the middle is the most common white blood cell typically seen, a neutrophil.  By looking at blood smears, part of a "CBC", or complete blood count, we can detect many abnormalities, or diseases.  The red blood cells carry oxygen to all parts of the body.  The platelets help stop bleeding when we are injured, and the white cells help fight infection.

Stay tuned to see what's up my sleeve next.  I promise it will involve a needle, but one sewing thread, not drawing blood!!