Do you know where _your_ pancreas is?

Today when I was studying congenital defects associated with the embryological development of the pancreas I came across a somewhat disturbing defect. I won't bore you with the details... ok, who am I kidding? Of course I'll bore you with the details. And since my roommate has already caught on to my not-so-secret designs to (inadvertently) turn my blog into an anatomy review I might as well continue on in the same vein. Sorry my friends (and poor passerby), until I finish anatomy you're going to be hearing about it. Again and again.

Back to pancreatic development! Ok, the pancreas is actually a production of fusion between the ventral and dorsal pancreatic buds. Essentially, around day 26 of of your happy womb floating time a dorsal bud appears right at the demarcation of the foregut and midgut and a ventral bud appears on day 28. Around the seventh week rotation and fusion occurs (note: this is rotation by the duodenum which is what the pancreatic buds come off of - that's the first part of the small intestine for you non-science people). So, there is this defect where the ventral bud is bifid and can actually then encircle the duodenum and compress it. It's like your pancreas is choking your small intestine!

My mind immediately supplied me with a vivid image of my pancreas throttling me in my sleep. What a way to go. (yes, yes, this is patently implausible, but you try studying embryological development for hours on end and not get a little loopy!)

Also, remember that if you're ever having a splenectomy (or performing one) to be careful not to damage the tail of the pancreas since it's veeeery close to the spleen.

Why yes, midterms are approaching at warp speed and I'm cramming a seemingly endless pile of random facts in my head that tend to spill over if I'm not careful. Why do you ask? *_*

Like...let's see, that the rectus sheath doesn't continue all the way down posteriorly and where it stops (1/3rd of the distance from the umbilicus to the pubic symphysis) is called the arcuate line and so after that the rectus abdominis is in direct contact with the transversalis fascia?

Or... that a indirect inguinal hernia passes laterally to the inferior epigastrics (why, oh why am I obsessed with the epigastric vessels??).

Right. You can expect my posts for the next two weeks to be similar to this one. Scattered. Random. And full of anatomy facts. Maybe even an occasional biochemistry detail just to shake things up at bit.