Pancreas Power Operation Ouch! Hospital Takeover

He's Dr Chris!

He's Dr Xand!

-And we're... BOTH:

-Identical twins.

Well, we were until you grew your beard.

In this series, we've taken over one of the biggest children's hospitals

in Europe - the amazing Alder Hey in Liverpool.

We're going head-to-head as we take on some of our hospitals' most

important jobs...

This isn't going well.

Ouch & About hits the wards for more medical mysteries.

-That is a hole going inside your stomach?

-Yes.

And we're catching up with our extraordinary Ouch Patients,

who come in for regular treatment.

Hello!

We've hidden our lab in a top-secret location.

And our experiments just... got...bigger!

You guys are crazy!

So are you ready to join us? It's going to be out of this world!

As...

What are you doing?!

Coming up today on...

"Operation Oooooouuuuch!"

CRASH!

Chris and I make a special delivery.

This lift doesn't go where I need to go.

McKenzie falls on something sharp.

And how big were these spikes?

And I get stung in the lab.

Ow! What are you doing?

But first...

Medical teams always expect unexpected cases.

And this one is a real jaw dropper.

In the emergency department,

the air ambulance has arrived with eight-year-old McKenzie,

who got stuck on a fence and has wounded his chest.

Ooh! Nasty! How has that happened?

Well, Xand, it's all about frogs.

McKenzie just loves them.

Me too! Hey, Chris, what's a frog's favourite game?

Cricket, cricket.

Very good, Xand. But this is about McKenzie,

who was playing with his friend Spike,

and they were heading to the frog pond.

Sounds ribbiting.

They were climbing over a fence...

Chris, that doesn't look like a fence you want to climb over.

No, Xand, it's not.

But McKenzie decided to have a go anyway.

He stepped on a wooden block to get over it,

but just as he got to the top,

the block broke and he got stuck on a spike!

-BOTH:

-Ouch!

The team gets straight to work,

assessing McKenzie for serious injuries.

Consultant Dr Sarah Jones is in charge of the trauma team today.

She feels around McKenzie's internal organs

to see if the fence has damaged any of them.

How big were these spikes?

The middle one was that big, the small one...

The side ones were, like, that big.

Our main concern is we don't know how deep this wound is

and there is always a potential that if the wound is deep,

has it gone deeper than muscle?

Has it gone into the chest, or has it gone into the tummy?

To assess whether any damage has been done inside McKenzie's body,

Dr Sarah uses an ultrasound machine.

-Press here.

-Everything seems OK.

But to be sure,

a more detailed picture of McKenzie's insides is needed.

In cases like this, an X-ray machine is brought TO the patient,

as it may be dangerous to move them.

The X-ray will help the medical team

to find out if the cut has caused any serious injuries.

All finished.

Underneath the skin on your chest, you have 12 pairs of bones,

making up your ribcage, or thoracic cage.

They're all protecting your vital internal organs.

Normally, they keep you safe,

but the spike may have gone through these

and done some damage to McKenzie's lungs, his liver or his diaphragm.

We'll catch up with McKenzie later

to find out the results of his X-ray.

TYRES SCREECH

Ouch!

In hospital, it's not just the doctors and nurses

who help to get you fixed.

There are lots of other heroes working behind the scenes.

Yes!

What will happen when we have a go at their amazing jobs?

Welcome to the Dr Chris Show.

-BOTH:

-Useless.

This is...

Today's hospital hero is postman Brian,

who single-handedly sorts, delivers and collects

all the mail in the hospital.

Alder Hey is bigger than seven football pitches.

Brian delivers to 100 different locations

and his daily rounds are over 12 miles long!

So who gets most of the mail in the hospital?

-Doctors.

-Not the patients?

It's a lot of the departments that get the mail.

So it's not just "get well" cards,

this is all the really important mail about patient letters...

-Referrals.

-Referrals.

Stuff like that, yeah.

So the letters you're dealing with

are some of the most important letters in the country.

Yeah, yeah.

So Brian's work is vital to the running of the hospital,

and we're just in time to help.

-Wow. Is this a big day, Brian?

-Yeah, Monday is a big day.

Cos of the weekend stuff as well.

Great. So what next, Brian?

We just sort of take the bags and tip it out.

-Oh, come on, Chris.

-Not a great start.

When you do it, does quite a lot end up on the floor?

No, not really!

'Oh, dear.

'Time to start sorting, and it's not as easy as you think.'

Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation,

Alder Hey Children's Charity.

They're not even calling it the same thing!

I can't even read that.

That seems to be an O or a D.

I think we're going to struggle.

'I think you're right, Chris.

'While we've got off to a bad start, Brian has this down to a fine art.'

He's making this look quite easy.

'With 100,000 letters arriving each year, there's no stopping him.'

You're not really pausing, Brian.

-There's not a lot of puzzling around about this.

-Nope!

'And it's not just important medical post.

'Deliveries can help make patients feel better.'

So, while Brian's sorting the post downstairs,

we're delivering some post to a young lady

who gets a lot of mail here in hospital.

-Dolly.

-Bed 30.

-I'm here.

-'There she is.

'We've met Dolly before in Ouch And About.'

Hi again, Dolly. So, we've got some post for you.

Dolly, what would life in hospital be like if you didn't get any post?

-Boring.

-What things have you got in the post?

This lion, the big fuzzy one.

So, what's his name?

Wait a minute, there's only one name for a pet lion.

Tiger. Am I right?

-Yeah.

-Did you tell him the lion's name was Tiger?

-No.

'Xand the psychic postman.'

So, we've seen just how important

the job of hospital postman really is.

But will we be able to...

-Wait for it.

-Don't do this, Xand.

-I'm going to do it.

..DELIVER when it comes to doing the job ourselves?

Come on.

It's time for us to take over as hospital postmen.

Your challenge today is to get these five important letters

to patients and staff as quick as you can.

So Xand and I have five special "Operation Ouch!" letters,

each to deliver around the hospital.

The fastest postman wins.

Xand, you're first.

Ready, steady, post.

Good luck! He's going to need it.

I'm right behind you, Xand.

Ready, steady, post.

To speed things up...

I'm going to plan as I go.

We've got Beth in ward...

'Butterfingers, Chris!'

I have no idea where I'm going.

I need to do some planning.

'While Xand's working out his route, I'm storming ahead.'

-That's me.

-I've got a letter for you.

-Thank you very much.

To the ground floor.

All right, then, let's get some speed up. Come on.

4B is Beth.

OK, so that's number four.

Hang on, I've only got four bits of mail.

I've already lost one letter.

It's not a good start.

Kath Harding?

But I'm doing OK.

Another one done.

Come on. I can do this.

Is this facilities management? I've got a letter for you.

Finally, a delivery.

But Chris has done more.

I've got to speed up.

'Maybe this hospital robot can help me.'

I need to get to level...

Level two! ROBOT BLEEPS

Well, there's no need to be like that.

'Ah, level two, here I am.

'And another delivery.'

Help, Chris is posting away!

I need to get a lift, fast.

Yes! A lift.

G. Ooh, I need level two.

This lift doesn't go where I need to go.

All right, I need to get up.

'Nearly done.'

I have a letter for you.

'Finally, out of the basement, things are going a bit better.'

'This might be closer than I thought.

'Only one lost, and four delivered.'

Stop the clock.

Hi, Joshua. Really nice to meet you. I have a letter for you.

And stop the clock.

What's the verdict, Brian?

One did it in 29.19, and one did it in 19.32.

So, Brian, who was who?

The winner is...

-Ohhh...

-Yes!

-What?

-I posted you into...defeat.

So, where did I go wrong?

Losing a letter.

'OK, I was the slowest, and I lost a letter.'

But I don't think it was the most important one.

'Lucky for you it wasn't a real one!'

Well, in the end, it was a close-run thing,

but I think if there's one thing we've learned,

it's just how important the job of hospital postman really is.

It was not a close-run thing, but, either way,

I think we should leave it to the experts.

Brian, here is your post trolley back.

Now it's time for our final visit to our Ouch Patients.

-Ruby.

-Hayden.

-Holly.

-And Tola.

We've been following them across the series

as they undergo their treatment.

First, let's catch up with Hayden.

-Hello, Hayden.

-Hello.

Hayden has Marfan syndrome, and, last time,

he had an operation on his heart.

Hayden's surgery went well

and he's been recovering in hospital for three weeks.

Yeah, I've got some very, very good news -

that me and my mum can go home tomorrow.

That's great!

And Hayden can't wait to catch up with his canine companion Buster.

I've not seen him for three weeks.

I've had his photo at the end of my bed.

That has helped me.

Just a few hours later and Hayden's heading home,

where one very excited member of the family is waiting to greet him.

Buster!

One happy boy and one happy dog.

All right, all right?

Hayden will continue to have regular check-ups until

he's fully recovered from his surgery.

Take care, Hayden. Bye!

Bye!

We've also been following Ruby,

who has been undergoing treatment for leukaemia,

a cancer which affects her blood.

Last time, we saw Ruby getting treated in hospital.

But, since she started her treatment,

Ruby hasn't been able to do the one thing she really loves.

Today I'm going swimming, and this is my dry suit,

so I can go in the water and not get wet.

My...

Cos if my lung gets wet, it gets infected.

And I'm really excited.

Ruby's treatment has been going well,

and she only has a couple more weeks of chemotherapy left.

Good luck with the rest of your treatment, Ruby.

We hope you'll all better soon.

-Bye.

-Bye.

We'll catch up with Holly and Tola later.

-TYRES SCREECH

-Ouch!

Chris, I wonder how our patient's getting on

in the accident and emergency department.

We don't have to wonder, Xand - we could just find out.

Earlier, we met eight-year-old McKenzie,

who had been airlifted to hospital after getting spiked in his chest.

He'd been heading to a frog pond when he tried to climb over a fence.

The wooden block he was standing on broke and he got stuck on a spike.

Here to assess if McKenzie needs an operation is surgeon Fiona Murphy.

So, is it hurting beneath my fingers,

or is it hurting a bit further up where you cut it?

-A bit further up where I cut it.

-Yeah.

He's got a very small cut, but sometimes that can be deceptive,

cos it can look very small but go deep.

So that's why we had to do more tests to check it hadn't gone

any further than we were expecting.

Surgeon Fiona takes a look at McKenzie's chest X-ray

to see if any internal damage has been done.

We're wanting to make sure there's not a leak of air around his lungs,

there's no black line, or that the lung has not collapsed,

and there's no white stuff in his chest that would suggest blood.

It's good news.

The X-ray is entirely normal.

McKenzie's cut isn't deep enough

to have affected any of his internal organs.

But because McKenzie has had a potentially serious injury,

doctors want to keep an eye on him overnight to make sure he doesn't

develop any further symptoms.

So it's a night on the ward for our patient.

And the next morning, there's good news.

They made me better and now I'm feeling all right,

so I'm good to go home.

And what have we learned from a dramatic trip to hospital?

Never climb metal gates.

I think that's a great idea.

-Bye!

-Bye!

Still to come...

A final catch-up with our Ouch Patients Holly and Tola.

There's an alarm in the lab...

HE BLOWS WHISTLE

And molten glass that helps your body heal.

Oh, wow. That is very, very hot.

Did you know your pancreas has its own taste buds

similar to your tongue?

They taste how sweet your blood is

and help control your body's sugar levels.

Ouch!

And now to our lab,

but, this time, we've hidden it in a top-secret location.

So secret that even Xand doesn't know where it is.

What are you doing?!

It's time for some amazing experiments.

Just don't try anything you see here at home.

Today's lab is about an organ we've never seen before.

-In the lab.

-That's right, in the lab.

I mean, obviously, WE'VE seen it before. We're doctors!

But what is it?

'The amazing pancreas!'

Ta-da!

This pancreas is from a pig, but it's very similar to your pancreas.

Now, in your body, the pancreas is located behind the stomach.

Come here and I'll show you exactly where.

Chris, lift up your shirt.

Now, Chris's pancreas would begin here...

..and end there.

Was that absolutely necessary?

Well, I think everyone has a right to know where their pancreas is.

Now you know where your pancreas is,

but it's what it does that makes it so amazing.

Your body breaks down food into many things,

including a type of sugar called glucose.

24/7, your pancreas is on duty like a sugar detective,

inspecting the levels of glucose in the blood that flows through it,

and if it thinks you've got too much glucose, it sounds the alarm...

HE BLOWS WHISTLE

..to tell our bodies to start to reduce it.

'To demonstrate this properly, I need to borrow Xand's finger.'

-Ow! What are you doing?!

-I'm checking your blood-sugar level.

And that didn't really hurt, did it, Xand?

No, I just wasn't expecting it.

Now, this is a machine that doctors use

to measure patients' blood-sugar levels.

'Your blood-sugar level

'is a measurement of the amount of glucose in your blood.'

And, Xand, your blood-sugar level is 5.7.

And that is completely normal.

Wait a minute, normal's quite boring.

No, in this case, normal is interesting,

because the sugar in your blood comes from food.

And Xand hasn't eaten any breakfast.

-Have you, Xand?

-That's true.

'So, without breakfast,

'why is Xand's blood-sugar level normal and not low?

'To help answer this, I'm going to give Xand his breakfast.

'Of course, it's not a proper breakfast - it's for an experiment.

'These high-carbohydrate foods are quickly turned into glucose

'and passed into his bloodstream,

'ready to be used as energy all around his body.'

HE BURPS

Ooh, I'm absolutely stuffed.

'No wonder. You wouldn't normally eat this much, Xand.

'After that carb-fuelled feast,

'what happens when we take a new reading of Xand's blood?'

As we can see, your blood-sugar level has risen from 5.7 to 6.1.

'So, after that big breakfast, Xand's blood sugar has risen,

'but not by much - only 0.4 of a difference.

'So why's his blood not full of sugar from all those carbohydrates?

'Well, that's thanks to the pancreas.

'It does a really important job

'in keeping your blood-sugar levels under control.

'To show you how it manages this, we have...'

The blood-sugar challenge.

In today's experiment, each of us has a body...

a pancreas...

some blood vessels...

and some cells.

We also have a large amount of glucose,

which we need to get out of our blood

and into our cells, where it's needed to make energy.

And whoever does this the quickest will have the best-working pancreas.

-Are we ready, then?

-We are ready.

Go.

Now, this is a bit like eating.

Your body breaks down carbohydrate into glucose,

and then you can see the levels of glucose in my blood are rising

just the way they did when I had that big meal.

But it's dangerous if glucose levels get too high,

and this is where your amazing pancreas comes in.

It produces a hormone called insulin to reduce them.

Now, my pancreas is working well.

It's releasing insulin, which is opening the doors to the cells,

so that when I put glucose in the bloodstream, it flows into the cell.

So, the cells have lots of energy.

How are you getting on, Xand?

Well, mine isn't working the same as yours.

My blood-sugar levels have gone up very high,

and none of it has gone into my cells.

So, it looks like Xand's model has something called type 1 diabetes.

Now, if a person has type 1 diabetes,

it means that their pancreas doesn't make insulin,

and so the glucose stays in their blood and can get dangerously high,

and their cells don't get any energy.

But we can give Xand's pancreas a helping hand

by injecting a dose of insulin.

Now, this is something that people who have type 1 diabetes have to do.

You might have to do it yourself,

or maybe you've got a friend or a family member

who has to inject insulin into their body, often at mealtimes.

Now, as you can see, that shot of insulin has done the trick.

All the glucose is in the cells,

and the blood glucose is back down at a nice low level.

Thanks, Chris. Thanks, insulin.

So, we've shown you just how busy your pancreas is,

constantly making sure you have

the right amount of glucose in your blood.

And we've shown you that insulin is a hormone that sends a signal

to your body to unlock the cells so they can take in glucose as energy.

And Xand's real pancreas did a great job of keeping

his blood-sugar levels normal, even after that huge meal.

Thanks, pancreas.

"That's OK." Shall we get another meal now?

"That'd be nice."

Now let's catch up with another one of our Ouch Patients.

Hi.

Nine-year-old Holly has cerebral palsy.

This affects her muscle control and movement.

Last time we saw Holly doing physiotherapy

to strengthen her muscles.

Good control.

And today Holly gets to put these muscles to good use.

Today is sports day, and I'm really excited about it.

The first race today is going to be the relay race.

That's why I have this thing right here.

And she's off. Come on, Holly, you can do it!

Well done.

I do have to give a little...

..hi and thank you to my BFF Sophie.

She ran at the year four girls' sprint together with me,

instead of me being left on my own, which made me very emotional.

But that's what besties are for.

So, how did the race go?

Our team came third overall.

Excellent work, Holly.

All the best for the future.

Bye!

-ALL:

-Bye!

Hello.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-We've also been following Tola.

Tola is on dialysis because he has a kidney disease.

It will help my kidneys function more.

Last time, we saw how Tola's condition affects his daily life,

especially what he eats.

If I have too much potassium, I could start vomiting,

so I have to keep on a balanced diet.

Tola recently had an operation to enable him to have dialysis

without any tubes permanently attached to his body.

I am here with my mum on the...

in the hospital, cos I just had an operation on my arm.

So now he can take part in some fun activities.

I can start going swimming

and do all the stuff that I couldn't do before.

So, things are looking up for Tola, and, no matter what,

he always finds time to beat his dad at table tennis.

He is the hardest challenge in my family,

and the rest are just easy to me - especially my brother.

Great skills!

It's something I really love to do,

so why would I let go of something I really love

just for some kidney disease that I have?

Well played, Tola. Good luck for the future.

-Bye!

-Bye.

-Bye, Tola.

-That's a wrap.

-Xand!

-What?

-What are you doing?

-I'm sleeping, or at least I was.

-But why?

-Well, everyone knows,

sleep is an important way for the body to heal itself, to restore,

-to recover...

-Xand, I know what sleep is important for,

but why are you doing it now? It's the middle of the day.

We have important medical technologies and...

and innovations and stuff to investigate.

-Do we?

-Yes. It's time for Investigation Ouch.

Do you remember this guy, Casper?

He came into the emergency department

after tripping over a tree stump a year ago.

Casper had an operation to fix a hole in his bone.

Now, your bones are a totally unique material.

There's nothing else quite like them,

and so you need really special stuff to fix them.

And today, we're going to find out how that special stuff is made.

Come on, you lot!

This is Imperial College in London,

and scientists here are working on incredible new medical treatments.

Professor Julian Jones is working on new ways to fix our bones.

And it all starts with this - a piece of glass.

I would have thought that glass

would be the very worst thing in the world to repair bones with.

It's brittle, it chips, it's sharp, it's not very strong...

So either you're crazy, or you can explain how it works.

Yes, that is glass, but it also is a special glass called bioglass,

and it has special powers.

If a surgeon takes that and puts it into the body,

it will form a very tight bond to bone.

And it also tells the cells in the bone

to get active and produce more.

So the glass actually talks to your bones, your broken bones,

and says, "It needs mending over here."

-Absolutely.

-Wow.

Bone can heal itself really well,

but sometimes, with a big hole, it needs some help.

Bioglass can do this by bridging the gap

and giving the body's own cells something to hang onto

and make new bone.

Bioglass is made from the same raw materials as window glass,

except it's got lots more calcium, which is good for bones.

Well, I think we need to see some glass get made, don't you?

To make bioglass,

the raw materials are measured and weighed and then mixed together,

before being superheated in a special furnace

to 1,400 degrees Celsius.

This turns the solid sand into a molten hot liquid.

Oh, wow. That is very, very hot.

That is amazing. So, in here now, this pile of, sort of, white rubble,

that's bioglass?

Yeah, and it's been quickly frozen into place by the water.

This...

..is brand-new bioglass.

It's then dried, sterilised and ground down into a very fine powder,

ready to be used as bone-fixing material.

So what the surgeon would do is take some blood from the wound

and then just apply it, a little bit of it, to the glass,

and then, sort of, make a putty.

All those proteins and cells in the blood

will clump the grains of glass together,

so it ends up like...like putty,

like chewing gum almost.

Yeah. And then the surgeon will just press it into the hole in the bone,

then over a few weeks and months, the bone will repair.

So, if your research goes according to plan, in my lifetime,

I will see dramatic changes

-in the way we can treat people's bones.

-Absolutely.

Professor Julian is also working on a type of bioglass

that can be printed.

Its specially-designed shape means bones could heal even better,

and he's developed a bouncing bioglass.

This is glass, but it doesn't break.

-It bounces.

-Yeah.

-Unbreakable glass.

-Amazing.

This could replace cartilage, the stuff between your joints.

Bioglass is amazing stuff, and it's in hospitals right now,

helping patients like Casper, who need their bones fixed.

And the best news is scientists are working on

even more applications for this amazing stuff.

Thanks, glass.

The doctors and nurses in A&E are ready for their next patient.

I wonder who it's going to be.

Yeah, if only there was some way we could find out.

It'd be amazing to know, wouldn't it? I'd love to find out.

Waiting in the emergency department, with her mum and sister,

is seven-year-old Keira.

What's happened to your chin, Keira?

I was riding me bike from school, and I was riding it too fast,

and I went over the handlebars and skidded on the floor.

Ooh, she scraped her jaw on the floor.

That must be sore! Let's find out more.

Keira was heading home from school on her bike with her sister.

Oh no, Chris, she's not wearing a helmet!

I know, Xand, but anyway,

Keira was cycling along and it was raining cats and dogs.

-Really?

-No, it's a saying, Xand.

It was just raining heavily.

So, Keira shouted to her sister, "Hurry up and get home!"

-Good idea.

-She was riding like the wind,

going so fast that when she went to stop, she skidded,

hurtled over the handlebars, and landed on her chin.

At least it wasn't her head.

Ouch!

In charge of checking that chin is Dr Robert Smith.

So, can you just bend your knee for me again?

It's important for Dr Smith to rule out a more serious head injury

before he looks at Keira's chin.

He tests her nerves by first checking her reflexes

and then making sure she has feeling in all parts of her body.

Can you feel that?

Dr Smith then goes on to check that her eyes are working properly.

You see that black box up on the roof, there?

So, I want you just to stare at that for me.

OK. And now stare at my finger.

That's a pretty intense stare.

The neurological examination was fine.

She didn't have any worrying symptoms

of, you know, a head injury.

Great news. Time to look at her cut.

She did have a sort of small laceration on her chin,

and I'm going to ask the nurse to come in now,

just to make sure it has a good clean,

and then we'll close it with some wound glue.

How's our patient Keira feeling?

I'm feeling a bit scared.

Oh, there's nothing to be scared of.

You'll be fixed up in a jiffy.

The nurse gives the wound a good clean.

Gross alert! Look away if you must.

And with an extra pair of hands to hold the edges together,

the special wound glue is applied.

Good girl.

And just like that, Keira's all fixed up.

-How's it feeling?

-It's OK.

-Excellent.

Anything you've learned from today?

To not ride fast.

Anything else?

Always wear a helmet.

Spot on. Bye!

Next time on Operation Ouch! Hospital Takeover...

We get colourful in the kitchen...

There is my blue sea, ready to go in the oven.

It's breaking point in the lab...

Oh!

..and April gets a big surprise.

What were you expecting?

So we'll see you next time for more...

BOTH: Operation Ouch!

-Chris!

-Bye, Xand!

-Chris!

It all stays under control thanks to this amazing organ,

the pancreas.

I haven't got a pancreas. Where's my pancreas?

-I need a pancreas.

-Pancreas!

-Pancreas day!

-Where is the pancreas?

Could I get my pancreas, please?

If there's anything we can't work out where to put it,

we'll leave it in a pile on the table.

(Operation Ouch.)