Last night we had the amazing opportunity to go to the Body Worlds exhibit. It was amazing. We have wanted to go to this for a long time, so it was such a treat to have it finally come to Salt Lake. The biggest "treat" of all was that we got free tickets because University Hospital put it on, and they offered every employee two tickets. So that was great! Scott is still on the payrolll at the U (even though he doesn't work at the lab anymore) so we actually got 4 tickets and gave the other 2 to his parents since they have wanted to go forever.
I can't even explain how amazing it was to see these bodies. The body is the most amazing, intricate thing. There is so much more I wish I knew. It was really fun to be with Scott because since he has been studying all of this stuff, he really knew a lot about the heart and all the muscles, and could answer a lot of questions. I guess maybe medical school is paying off for something (even though it has nothing to do with dentistry)!
For those of you who don't know what this is, they are real bodies of donars. They are positioned in all different poses, soccer players, dancers, skateboarders, javelin throwers, etc. You can see all the muscles, the nerves, the bones, the brain, it is incredible. Here is an example:I wrote down a lot of amazing things, here are just a few: -The arteries, veins, and capillaries that carry blood to and from the heart are more than 60,000 miles long.
-The cardiovascular network of the body would wrap around the world twice.
-If the brain was spread out completely flat (smashed) it would be 16 square feet. Can you believe that???
- The digestive tract is a long tube that is 30 feet long.
-The entire digestive process takes 20 hours.
-We walked into this room and it was all dimmed and you could hear the sound of a heart beating. There was nothing in there but a bunch of huge barrels and a sign that said, "This is your heart's workout today." Your heart pumps 1,800 gallons of blood through your body a day. That is 75 gallons an hour! I just imagine 75 gallons of milk going through my body an HOUR!
-They showed the difference between a smokers set of lungs, and a non-smokers. It was remarkable. It was completely black, disgusting. I don't know how a smoker could see that and not have a dang good incentive to quit.
-My favorite thing of the night was probably learning about the fetus. They had in glass containers, real fetus' at all different stages of the pregnancy. UNBELIEVABLE. I can't believe how tiny they were in the beginning. They were about as big as a grain of rice. I kept thinking, "How can something that tiny make a woman so sick?!" It was incredible that at 16 weeks the little thing had facial expressions and you could see their eyes. Then they had babies at 21 weeks, and up. I am sorry but a baby inside of you is the real thing. They are so real, I don't know how anybody could disagree with that.

-Just a couple of quotes they had on the walls that I loved about the heart:

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own."

"Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking."

There are SO many other cool things that we saw and learned about, you guys just need to go! What an amazing opportunity.

Scott and I trying to compete with their cool poses. Close?