Onion bulb structures, toluidine blue stain.

Hypertrophic changes with onion-bulb formation occur most commonly as a result of recurrent segmental demyelination and are most often seen in hereditary neuropathies (such as the fairly common Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease). The schwann cell doesn’t wrap around the axon properly and as a result, you get these strange involutions in the histological section.

Yet another lunchroom poster I made (sorry for the watermark).

An H&E section of a complete hydatiform mole, an abnormal pregnancy where a non-viable, fertilized egg implants in the uterus.

Semi related story time! I have a problem with people not screwing the lids on things before sending them to us. Pee that smells like raw fish that’s been left in the sun for a few days and leaking all over things is one thing (and apparently a daily thing). But when I pull out a bio bag where the bloody specimen is no longer in its leak-proof container because someone didn’t screw the lid on right (such as today), that is a problem.

And when the contents happen to be Products of Conception, AKA someone’s spontaneous abortion, AKA something we can never recollect, that is unacceptable.

Basal cell carcinoma, false colored section. Cells within the tumour are purple and have an abnormal arrangement. The skin surface is at top (red).

When I made my visit to a very good Mohs clinic in town (not as a patient), there was an elderly gentleman with a horn on his head. By which I mean he had a grey-black tumor the size of a very large egg on the top of his head which was actually shaped like a broken horn. He had spent years hiding it under a hat and had no family and friends to push him to see a doctor about it until that day.

When the doctor cut into it, the massive amount of necrotic tissue underneath stunk so badly, it knocked out the nurse in the room. It was… well, it was something else.

ohscience:

vagina cells

New guidelines have decreased the frequency of PAP testing. Job prospects are not looking so good for my cytology friends, according to them.

Movat’s pentachrome stain. We don’t use it in our region, but it’s nice to look at once in a while because all the pinks and purples in routine hematoxylin and eosin are not very exciting.

Trichinella spiralis encysting in some muscle with a routine H&E stain.

When doing Ova and Parasites, patients fill out a history form for us. Either many seem to think it is a joke or our form is not very good. One time, someone put “Narnia” as their last travel destination. And for the yes/no question of “known carrier?”, people like to write, “Air Canada”. Although these botched forms are not useful, I still enjoy reading them.