Objective 59:And some People Eat This???



Our Cat Liver



So the livers job is to make bile. Bile is a substance used to breakdown fats so that way the intestinal enzymes can handle the fats better and break it down further. It is the largest organ in the body weighing about 3 pounds. So just remember that next time you jump up on the scale, hey 3 of those pounds are from my liver! They are almost completely protected by the ribs. They take up their residence mostly on the right side of the body spanning to the body's midline. It consist of 4 lobes, with the gallbladder lying just below the right lobe.
In reading the chapter I got to learn about the diseases of the liver. I found those interesting because working as a CNA I am often times exposed to the different types of Hepatitis. There are 6 different types but the ones I hear of more in my work area are HVB and HVC. In reading I found out that 40% of hepatitis is the HVB type. One of my patients has this particular type. Most of my co-worker on the 3-11 shift are extreme germaphobes, so they double glove when dealing with that particular patient. This type is transmitted by blood transfusions used needles or sexual contact.  As I was reading I was dishearten when i found out that this patient is more susceptible to getting liver cancer.
I also was interested about HVC because I believe that this is the type that my grandmothers husband has.HVC is life threatening but is being treat with a combination of  drugs, from injections to oral medication weekly.
Another type of liver disease I read about was Cirrhosis which is serious inflammation of the liver. It is caused by alcoholism or damage to the liver cells (aka-hepatocytes). The result is the liver becomes to fatty and eventually blocks the blood flow. This hits home to me because my uncle is an alcoholic and he just won't give up drinking for the life of him. If only he could see what his liver actually looks like.

Liver @ 40x

These are some picture of the lobules in the liver out of a book that my friens Allen let Valerie and I borrow. This book helped me learn different things about the liver and some of the other organ sytems. It is a very interactive book, and it has a lot of coloring exercises in it.


Portal Triads and Sinusoids



In Depth Pic Of Lobe of Liver 

Blown uo Picture of a Liver Lobule

Liver Lobules