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THE BATTLE OF DR. PUTRID

PATHOGEN & MR. MEDICINE MAN

One sunny day in the park 2 friends were re-united after 15 long years. They were good high school friends and Matt had just moved to Harrington last year. They could not believe their eyes! They both had changed so much and were nearly unrecognizable to each other. Matt started to tell Joe what he had been doing but he had one problem. He was struggling to pay the rent at this new house as he had no job and needed a place to stay.

Lucky for Matt, Joe is a very rich man and owns many houses around Harrington. He wants to help a friend out and offers Matt to move in with him for the time being until he can get a job. Matt doesn’t even consider the offer for a minute and he quickly accepts. They arrange for a truck to arrive at Matt’s place and he will move in next week. What Matt doesn’t know is that Joe has Tuberculosis, an infectious disease that can make you very very sick…….

Meanwhile, in Joe’s body there is a pathogen called Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. But we can just call him Dr. Putrid Pathogen or Dr. P.P. He has already started to multiply in Joe’s body and needs to get out to invade someone else’s body because he loves making people sick and miserable. 15-20 hours until his invasion is complete, he also has an evil plan and his next victim is Matt…………

This is a close-up of Dr.P.P. He can only grow in humans and is cylinder shaped almost like a grain of rice but 100 times smaller. He is a pale cream colour and takes about 15-20 hours to grow if he were to invade Matt’s body. He is also acid fast meaning that he is resistant to de-colourisation during staining procedures. Dr.P.P is also very small approximately 0.2-0.5 um in width and 2-4 micrometers in length. He is so evolved than he was before and he is ready to take over Matt’s body, his evil plan will commence in 7 days…..

Haha Dr. Pee Pee.

I’M SO POWERFUL!! MWAHAHA

SHUT UP!!!!

You’re not so great yourself!

7 days later……..

Matt is moving in and he is so excited that his life is finally turning around. Joe is starting to feel a bit sick and coughs a lot but he doesn’t think it’s anything serious so he leaves it and doesn’t go to the doctors. Joe shows Matt his room and around the house. They make an agreement that Joe will help him find a job but Matt has to work around the house and help with different jobs.

Joe had been coughing A LOT for 3 weeks but he doesn’t know why and thought it would go away. Matt becomes very concerned for his health and suggests that he should go to the doctors and see what’s wrong with him. Matt promises that he will look after the house and him when he gets back. Meanwhile the water droplets that contain Dr. P.P are in the air and all Matt has to do is breathe it all in.

This is a close up of Dr. P.P in action as he flies through the air and will attempt to get into Matt’s nose. He travels with microscopic droplets and can remain in the air for a few hours. Dr. P.P can only be spread from person to person and he will remain in Matt’s lungs, but only if he can get there first.

The bacterium is stored in Joe’s lungs and whenever he coughs, sneezes or laughs etc. microscopic droplets travel through the air and can remain there for hours. Another person, in this case Matt had to have close contact with Joe for a long period of time to catch the disease. It is inhaled through the nose or mouth and it travels down the trachea, to the lungs where it will grow and multiply in a time period of 15-20 hours. All DR.P.P has to do is get through 3 lines of defense.

As you can see here, Dr.P.P. has successfully travelled to Matt’s nose where he will meet the first line of defense. He will have to travel through the rainforest of hair and mucous. The hair should filter out any unwanted substances while the mucous will stick to the intruder preventing it from entering. But, Dr.P.P. is prepared and he safely got to the other side of Matt’s nostrils.

Dr. P.P then has to fight his way through the second line of defense. Phagocytes are released through blood vessels and move towards any pathogens that have invaded the body. They ingest the pathogen or release chemicals to absorb it and white blood vessels are released and attack the dying cells. But, Mr Putrid Pathogen was able to hide and come out after the phagocytes have left.

Dr P.P reaches the 3rd line of defense and he sees a B cell coming out being activated by a T cell. He watches as it divides into a plasma and memory cells tagging bacteria with antibodies. These big “eater cells” come out devouring bacteria tagged with antibodies. The memory cells then come out and “take a picture” of the bacteria to remember it for next time. He quickly slides into the lungs merely missing the eater cells and decides to make himself comfortable.

Dr.P.P begins to multiply but he is very slow at it, it will take him 15-20 hours to multiply into large numbers. As we can see here his evil plan is in action and soon he will conquer Matt’s body and make him very sick. At first he is only latent Tuberculosis then he will become active causing many symptoms and problems.

Meanwhile on the outside Matt is coughing and he will often cough up bloody phlegm. He also feels very tired and doesn’t feel like eating at all resulting to weight loss.

He also has a high temperature and sweats a lot at night. He also has a lot of chest pain and pain that he cannot explain throughout his body.

Matt decides that he should go to the doctors to see what’s wrong with him. The doctor performs some tests and says that Matt has Tuberculosis. Matt started to worry a lot but the doctor calmed him down and said that it was curable he just had to take some medication. The doctor also said that he saw Joe down here a few weeks ago and he had tuberculosis as well!

The doctor prescribed him with some medications to cure his disease. Matt had to follow a strict plan in order for the treatment to work. He treatment was to go from 6-9 months taking a combination of four different antibiotics to fight the bacteria. Mr Medicine Man lived in these antibiotics and wanted to fight Dr. P.P and restore Matt’s body once again.

Mr. Medicine Man entered Matt’s body and fought for 8 long months. Dr. P.P grew weaker and weaker as the months went on and on. Eventually Mr. Medicine Man’s army defeated Dr.P.P and he was removed from Matt’s body never to return again. Mr. Medicine Man lived to fight another day and eventually Matt and Joe became healthy again. Matt also found a job but he stayed at Joe’s place and was able to help with payments.