In memory of my friend's brother...
Before studying nursing I wondered why people got sick, why bodies break down and fall apart. I was amazed by how capricious disease and injury seemed to be, and how the effects on the body seemed indiscriminate and sometimes unimaginable.
After studying the structure and function of the body in anatomy (with a cadaver lab) and physiology, and the dysfunction of the body in pathophysiology, I began to wonder how people maintain their health at all, why we all don't just fall down and break apart this very minute.
The complexity of the biological form and the intricacy of its functions amaze me. With all the ways in which the body could break down and with all of its susceptibility to disease and injury, the fact that it has such tenacious integrity places me in awe of it.
When a hammer doesn't work or work effectively it is usually easy to figure out why. A broken or too short handle, broken or too light head. But when a computer doesn't work, diagnosis is a little more difficult. The relative complexity of these tools determines our ability to understand the former easily and the latter with more difficulty.
The body is both and more. Physically, a mechanical, hydraulic system of levers and fulcrums, pumps and pulleys; an electrical, computer-like system of stimuli and currents, algorithms and feedback loops; a chemical system of neurotransmitters and pathways. Metaphysically, the systems and systems' components altogether are greater than simply their sum.
The human body, in health and in illness. Amazing.
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