Fantastic Voyage

Good afternoon everyone! I am Ms. Rae and I will be your tour guide today. I am glad that you are able to join me and my camera man as we are once again shrunken down to just eight microns long. Some of you have not been on this kind of fantastic voyage before and I see some that were here for our trip to the lung. Today we will be swallowed by 55 year old Mr. Barker. Today we will witness the digestion processes of his hamburger, French fries, and root beer. This will be a truly amazing process to witness. We will be traveling through his gastrointestinal tract (GI). This is a tube that goes from the mouth and down to the esophagus, to the stomach, duodenum, small intestine, large intestine, rectum and the anus. We won’t be exiting there, instead we will take our journey to the distal ileum and into the blood stream through the Superior Mesenteric Vein. Our sub will make its way through Mr. Barkers Renal Artery through the hepatic portal vein, heart and lungs. Once we arrive to the kidney we will travel through his urinary tract until we exit his body through his urethra. We will continue on our journey until we exit the body through the urethra. So, I hope that everyone has plenty of battery life or film for this tour. So get comfy and let’s go!

Out of all the things in my life that I would have never expected, this would definitely be and the previous micro journey never in my wildest dreams. Mr. Barker has just begun eating his lunch. We are in his burger. Don’t worry he won’t chew the sub. Looks like he is starting with his french fries. It looks like we are up next. This is so exciting. Here we are entering his mouth. See how his molars are breaking the food down into smaller and easier to swallow pieces. This is actually the beginning of the digestive process. Here his saliva helps aid in the breaking down of proteins and carbohydrates. Saliva is produced from the submandibular, sublingual, and parotid glands (Patton & Thibodeau, 2008). Saliva...