annulla
June 12th, 2009, 3:51pm
For eight years, Jessica Terry suffered from stomach pain so horrible it brought her to her knees. The pain, along with diarrhea, vomiting and fever, made her so sick she lost weight and often had to miss school, but her doctors, no matter how hard they tried, couldn't figure out the cause of her abdominal distress.
Then one day in January, Terry, 18, figured it out on her own. In her Advanced Placement science class, she was looking under the microscope at slides of her own intestinal tissue -- slides her pathologist had said were completely normal -- and spotted an area of inflamed tissue called a granuloma, a clear indication that she had Crohn's disease. "She was pretty excited," said Terry's science teacher, MaryMargaret Welch. "She said, 'Ms. Welch! Ms. Welch! Come over here. I think I've got something!'" Welch, who has taught the Biomedical Problems class for 17 years, immediately went on the Internet to see whether Terry had indeed spotted a granuloma.
"I said, 'Jeez, it certainly looks like one to me,' " Welch remembered. "I snapped a picture of it on the microscope and e-mailed it to the pathologist. Within 24 hours, he sent back an e-mail saying yes, this is a granuloma. Welch credits Terry's "fresh eyes" but also local pathologists who volunteered to train her and her classmates on how to view specimens under the microscope. "We've been lucky to have that partnership. It allowed Jessica to think of herself as a scientist," she said. "The class empowered Jessica to think of herself as being a partner in her own health care."
Terry graduated this month and she'll start nursing school in the fall. She's written a book for children about Crohn's disease, which she hopes to have published. In the meantime, she's grateful for her science class and for the pathologist who gave her the slides.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/11/teen.self.diagnosis/index.htmlhttp://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/HEALTH/06/11/teen.self.diagnosis/art.teen.self.diagnose.jpg
Then one day in January, Terry, 18, figured it out on her own. In her Advanced Placement science class, she was looking under the microscope at slides of her own intestinal tissue -- slides her pathologist had said were completely normal -- and spotted an area of inflamed tissue called a granuloma, a clear indication that she had Crohn's disease. "She was pretty excited," said Terry's science teacher, MaryMargaret Welch. "She said, 'Ms. Welch! Ms. Welch! Come over here. I think I've got something!'" Welch, who has taught the Biomedical Problems class for 17 years, immediately went on the Internet to see whether Terry had indeed spotted a granuloma.
"I said, 'Jeez, it certainly looks like one to me,' " Welch remembered. "I snapped a picture of it on the microscope and e-mailed it to the pathologist. Within 24 hours, he sent back an e-mail saying yes, this is a granuloma. Welch credits Terry's "fresh eyes" but also local pathologists who volunteered to train her and her classmates on how to view specimens under the microscope. "We've been lucky to have that partnership. It allowed Jessica to think of herself as a scientist," she said. "The class empowered Jessica to think of herself as being a partner in her own health care."
Terry graduated this month and she'll start nursing school in the fall. She's written a book for children about Crohn's disease, which she hopes to have published. In the meantime, she's grateful for her science class and for the pathologist who gave her the slides.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/11/teen.self.diagnosis/index.htmlhttp://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/HEALTH/06/11/teen.self.diagnosis/art.teen.self.diagnose.jpg