University of illinois Urbana-Champaign

Image of the Week Gallery

Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy of Lori Heil's Gallbladder

Download original media

Media Details

Created 4/1/2003

This should put you off your feed! The gallbladder: a nifty little balloon-like sack full of stinky black bile. When it works, life is grand: burritos and pizzas just slide right through. When it don't: well, it ain't pretty. Ms. Lori's had a few itty-bitty problems: GALLSTONES! (Insert scary organ music here.) Gallstones block them little bile ducts, causing the the gallbladder to swell and swell, getting bigger and bigger until... POW! - she blows, spraying bile and goo like a tire rupturing a bloated, dead gopher rotting on asphalt in the hot summer sun. Fortunately for us who have to be near her, laparoscopic surgery can suck that purple monster right out before it begins springing a leak. Her doctor done jammed a handful of tubes up her bellybutton, and using a fancy tire pump, inflated her innards with some of that there carbon dioxide. The fiberoptic camera they wiggled in there caught the action for us. Tiny scissors and knives whirled away like one of them fancy kitchen appliances they advertise on them late-night infomercials, cutting the little devil loose and plugging up the holes. The bits and pieces were then slurped right out her navel into a big mayo jar, kind of like that squirmy spider thing they pulled out of Keanu Reeves' belly in The Matrix. When they was done, they sealed her up with some surgical-brand duct tape and sent her home. We were able to save parts of the little guy for you all to see: it should be somewhere in one of these here pizza boxes. As a bonus, if you look closely, you can see real, authentic doctor gibberish written right there on the picture. We think them is all words, but some don't look quite right and seem to be missing a few letters and parts and what not. If anyone figures out what it all says, give a holler as we all would like to know.

Credits

  • Lori Heil , ITG, Beckman Institute
Back to all images