The Platelet

Ladies and Gentlemen, fresh from her starring role opening the HNA conference in Manchester, I give to you the latest offering from Patricia Bell, the Verse Nurse.

This is my story that Trish is now jotting

I’m a little blood cell, my job is blood clotting.

A little adventure, a tale with a twist

For 4 days in vivo I live, I exist.

I travel around vessels some straight and some narrow

Following my creation in the bone marrow.

Today is quite quiet I’m ambling around

Up to the brain then the feet near the ground.

I’m whizzing along there’s no end and no start

Where am I going – of course to the heart?

Now I’m in a chamber the right atria

I need a rest so I think I’ll stay here.

But no I’m expelled out of a ventricle I’m flung

And off once again to a place called the lung.

I watch and observe – it’s a hell of a ride

The red cells are ditching their carbon dioxide.

It’s breezy in here and a molecule comes through

It looks quite important – it is, its O2.

Interested in me – that’s not what I’m finding

It’s those red cells again- with them they are binding.

Now I am finding more molecules quite yummy

We must have come past the gut or the tummy

There’s sugar and protein, lots of fat from some cheese

 

It takes all the space and it’s a bit of a squeeze.

The kidneys and liver have performed an expunge

And off down the toilet has gone all the gunge.

So everything’s cleaner, I continue on my way

And wonder if it’ll be an eventful day.

My mind is on trauma – a bump or a bang

And I wonder when I’ll join in with a platelet gang.

Then suddenly it happens – there’s trouble ahead

An injury sustained some vessels have bled.

This trauma has taken a veritable toll

My blood cell friends are leaking out of the hole.

And then my biggest phobia

I’m growing pseudopodia.

Then suddenly I hit a strand

Of something called Von Willebrand.

Named after a guy, called Eric the Viking

He sounds pretty cool and much to my liking.

Other platelets are changing so very fast

I wonder how long my life will last.

They are now all around me above and below

All linked together causing the leakage to slow.

And now after all that blood got slopped

The haemorrhage at last has stopped.

As platelets we bond, we all hold hands

 

Protected by strong fibrin bands.

And gradually the vessel mends

But I won’t be off and around those bends.

Some you win and some you lose

I’m part of a dissolving purple bruise.

Now who is this coming – protein S and C?

It really is the end of me.