Episode 6 Operation Ouch!

I'm Dr Chris.

And I'm Dr Xand.

-We're identical twins.

-Twins!

Do you know your body does loads of amazing things every day,

without you even knowing?

It's time to saw open some bone.

Well, get ready to be wowed.

Smell my armpits.

We've got gobsmacking experiments...

Wow!

..mind-bending body tricks...

and real medical mysteries.

It's tickling the tip of my nose.

So, are you ready to see what you're made of?

Coming up today on...

Operation Ouch!

Find out what's in Chris's orange juice.

I'm on-call responding to real emergencies.

Just went to move and it went.

And I get new specs in Mindbenders.

But first...

In the emergency department,

the medical team are ready for their first patient.

Well, come on, let's meet him.

In Sheffield accident and emergency,

six-year-old Jude is waiting to see the doctors with his mum.

What's up, fella?

I've got a stone in my ear.

Oh, dear, how did that get there?

I just put it in my ear.

Oh, you put it there? OK.

Let's find out more, shall we?

It was circle time at school.

Oooh, I LOVE circle time.

Uh...OK. Anyway, Jude was daydreaming

and playing with the carpet.

-Oh, he's a tiny explorer in carpet jungle.

-Erm...

He probably discovered a sticky sweet or two...

Hello!

..and some fluff.

Ah! Get off me!

Er...no, he found a stone.

Oh, yes, and the stone wants to play chase,

then it jumps up high to catch him, flying through the air.

Er...no, Xand, Jude just picked up the stone

and popped it into his ear.

Oh...ouch!

I need to get some tweezers.

Best let the professionals decide.

Ear to sort it out is Dr Susanne Baron.

-Hello, Jude.

-Hi.

-How are you?

-Good.

What happened to you?

I put a stone in my ear by mistake.

By mistake, ah, that's not so bad then.

Was it a big stone?

Erm...it was...

Whoa, that big?!

..medium.

Medium big, OK.

Dr Baron begins the search.

I'll just pull it a little bit.

Are you in there, stone?

Whoops, there it is.

I can see it.

It's a little grey stone right in the middle of your ear.

We'll try and suck it out.

High five, bro, let's do this.

Dr Baron's using a vacuum to try and suck the stone out.

OK, it will tickle and it will be very noisy.

Oh, that's noisy.

I'm not even in there yet.

Come on, stone, out you come.

I think it has moved a little bit, the right way.

So, we'll try again.

It's moving, but will it come out?

No, I think it's wedged in there, actually.

The stone won't budge.

Sometimes we can't get these things out if they have a rough surface.

The next thing we need to do now is to refer him to the ear,

nose, throat surgeons.

I'm sorry the vacuum cleaner didn't work today.

The stone is still in my ear.

Don't worry, Jude, we'll be back later to sort that out.

Ready to see some amazing experiments?

Yes! A triumph.

We're going to show you how your incredible body works.

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

Today, we're looking at a pair of organs that really clean up.

Chris, what are you doing?

I'm cleaning and tidying the lab, Xand.

I thought we had one of those self-cleaning laboratories.

Would you like some orange juice?

Oh I'd love some, yeah, it's thirsty work, this.

-Here you go.

-Thanks, Xand.

It's got juicy bits in it!

Now, Chris doesn't like bits in his orange juice any more

than your body doesn't like bits or waste products in your

bloodstream, and what your kidneys do is help to get rid of them.

Now, I can remove the bits from the orange juice using this filter.

Hey, that's my tea strainer.

Whatever, it gets rid of all the little bits in the orange juice

just like your kidneys get rid of all the little

bits from your blood that your body doesn't want.

In 24 hours, your kidneys filter and clean 200 litres of blood

and it's even more amazing when you see what a real kidney looks like.

Now, this pair is from a pig, but they're very similar to yours.

It might look a bit gross, but your kidneys are amazing.

This tube here is the main blood vessel carrying

blood into the kidneys full of waste waiting to be removed.

The blood gets filtered and another tube carries the waste...

wee, down to this sack here which is your bladder.

Your bladder empties when you go to the loo.

And that's the pipe that takes away the cleaned-up blood

and sends it back around your body.

Right, let's have a closer look. Scalpel, please, Dr Chris.

Now inside the kidney is where all this filtering takes place.

There we go.

This is done by a special thing called a nephron.

There's about a million in each kidney and they're

so small you can't see them.

So, we've had to pay good money for this photo of one

under a microscope.

Chris, don't you just hate it when a bit of the body is

so small that you can only see it with a microscope?

I do, I do, I hate it,

but luckily, I've got just this eventuality covered.

-Oooh.

-Come with me, Xand.

Your kidneys are an amazing filtration system

and we're going to show you.

To do it, I've made these, two supersized kidney models,

one for me and one for you, Xand.

These are great.

Finally, a kidney model that's big enough to actually see what's

going on. I love it.

Yeah, I thought you'd like it.

So, we're going to use our giant-sized models to show you

just how your real-life kidneys clean your blood.

Now, this jar represents a single nephron inside your kidneys.

And just like in the real kidney, Chris has put a tube bringing

blood into the nephron here, another tube bringing cleaned-up blood out

of the kidney, and then a third tube taking the waste away, it's amazing.

OK. Well, thanks, Xand.

Now, the liquid that represents your blood is here.

It's got water and red glitter in it for a bit of colour.

Now we're going to pump our very attractive glittery blood through

our nephrons to give us an idea of how your kidney works in real life.

Are you ready, Xand?

I'm ready, Chris, let's go.

And...pump.

So, what you can see here is the glittery blood

flowing into the nephron.

And it gets filtered through the nephron

and then the nice clean blood travels back along the renal vein,

back to the body full of all the nice stuff your body wanted to keep.

Chris...?

-And everything else, the waste, comes out here...

-Chris?!

-..out of the ureter and into the bladder.

-Chris!

My urine's darker than yours.

Oh, so it is.

I must have given you the dehydrated kidney.

I wanted to show everyone what happens

if you don't drink enough water.

Oh, I see, clever.

If your wee is dark in colour like this, it's a

pretty reliable sign that your body isn't getting enough water.

Being dehydrated is not good for you.

Your body works best when it has enough water.

Light-coloured wee, like on my nicely working kidney,

is a sign that you're well hydrated.

So, we've seen how your kidneys are an amazing filter, cleaning

up your blood and getting rid of things your body doesn't need.

And the wee they produce is a pretty good sign of

whether you should be drinking more water.

Light yellow wee is good.

Speaking of drinking more, I'd like a glass of orange juice,

now I have some oranges here for you to squeeze for me.

OK, Xand.

Wait a minute, he's forgotten the oranges.

Chris, you've forgotten the oranges!

In the UK, there are hundreds of rapid response medical

teams on standby.

And they have to get to the scene of an emergency in minutes.

Minutes?! Oh!

We're on call with the UK emergency services,

showing you what it's really like on the front line, saving lives.

On-call with me is paramedic Jan Vann.

Today I'm with the West Midlands Ambulance Service

and I'm in this special fast response vehicle to get

you to the scene of an emergency fast.

Chris...wrong vehicle.

Yes, this...this vehicle.

This is the one we're using, this one, like I said.

Jan alone can do 10 to 15 emergency call-outs in a day

and a new case is just in for a 76-year-old lady

with a dislocated hip.

We're almost there, It's amazing how quick Jan

and the fast response vehicle are.

Jan and I are quickly on the scene.

Hello.

Just went to move, move the cushion and it went.

So, poor Geraldine had a hip replacement,

so, a new hip put in, just a couple of months ago.

But it's already been dislocated once.

And it looks like it may have gone again.

-The same, when I touch?

-A little bit.

-A little bit?

So, when it dislocates, that means that the top of the thigh bone

comes out of the socket on the pelvis.

The muscles are so strong in the leg that it's impossible to put

it back in place without putting her under anaesthetic, so

she is going to have to go back in and have a very small operation.

And in the meantime, Jan can assess her and make sure there's no

damage to any of the nerves or blood vessels, and totally reassure

her, make sure she's safe before she goes into hospital.

Hello, there, come on in.

In no time at all, the ambulance has arrived to take Geraldine

to hospital.

We've got to do it all without causing her too much pain,

so that's why we've got this chair.

She's being phenomenally tough but this is not going to be comfortable.

-That's it.

-And after some careful manoeuvring...

I've got you. I've got you.

..Geraldine is on her way.

So, a hip dislocation is just a phenomenally painful thing,

but the amazing skill of Jan and the other paramedics is to get her onto

that chair and into the ambulance without really increasing the pain.

And then she can get to hospital and have the problem fixed.

Still to come...

We have more tricks for your mind.

Give me a high five.

Chris is getting nosey.

Do you know why your body makes boogers?

And I need some help crossing the road.

Where is, where is the car?

Remember Jude with the stone in his ear?

Could be a rocky road to recovery.

Let's find out how he's getting on.

Back in Sheffield, six-year-old Jude has a stone stuck in his ear.

It was circle time at school.

Jude was daydreaming he was a tiny explorer in a carpet jungle

playing chase with a stone.

No, he wasn't, Xand. That was your fantasy, not Jude's.

He just picked up the stone and popped it in his ear.

The stone is in my ear still.

Earlier, the doctor tried to vacuum it out

but the stubborn stone wouldn't budge.

So Jude and Mum are back for a second go.

And here to try and rope in the rocky rascal is ear specialist

Mr Showkat Mirza.

-Shall we have a look at your ears, Jude?

-Yeah.

-Would that be OK?

-Yeah.

Mr Mirza looks for the lost stone.

And he looks and he looks.

What does he see, Chris?

It looked like he had a piece of wax deep in the ear.

So, there's so much wax in there it's hard to see anything.

But Mr Mirza has something for that.

So, I'm going to give you some drops for your ears, help clean them out.

It might even loosen whatever's in the ear

and then it all comes out, yeah?

-Right, say thank you, then, to the doctor.

-Thank you.

-You're welcome.

So Jude, whatever happened to that stone?

I don't know.

Jude heads home and hopefully the ear drops will work

and clear that ear.

And the very next morning.

That stone came out of my ear.

Whilst Jude was asleep, my husband basically pulled the stone

out of the ear.

The ear drops worked and dad was on hand to retrieve the stone.

He's good at fixing things.

BOTH DOCTORS: Bye, Jude. Bye, stone.

Bye-bye.

-Now we're going to mess with your minds...

-It's weird.

..scramble your senses...

and baffle your brain.

In Mindbenders.

Now, Xand, are you hungry? Have you eaten lunch?

I have eaten lunch, Chris,

but there is always room for a little something more.

Well, that is good, Xand, cos I have a small treat for you.

A treat, well, what is it?

This...

A single butterbean.

How is that a treat?

Well, you said you only had room for something small

and anyway, this is a magic bean.

A magic bean?

In order to get this bean, Xand,

you have to take part in today's mind-bending experiment.

This is a very simple game.

There are three beans, one on each cup.

When I say so, you are going to put those three

beans into the other cup, OK?

Ready? Three, two, one...go.

Yes.

So that took you four and a half seconds, all right?

Now, I want you to put on the glasses that you can see

on the table.

-Now, do these look like normal glasses?

-KIDS:

-No.

No, they look a bit weird, don't they?

These vision-shifting glasses make everything appear

further to the left than it actually is.

So, let's try with my funky new specs.

Are you ready? Three, two, one...go.

Come on, Dr Xand. Come on.

Oh, come on, come on, come on. Come on.

Hurry, Xand, hurry, Xand.

And get it, get it, get it.

-Oh, that was pretty bad.

-Did I do well?

Ten seconds. Ten seconds.

We repeat the experiment twice more.

Come on, Xandy.

And I complete it faster each time.

Oh, four and a half seconds.

He's now as quick with the glasses as he was without the glasses.

Now, let's try it again without the glasses.

Go. Come on, Xand.

So, everything should be back to normal, right? Wrong.

-Ah, Xand, you're rubbish at this.

-What did I get?

That took you seven seconds.

So, Xand was actually worse at the end without the glasses.

Let's see how this lot get on.

OK, are they nice and tight? Give me a high five.

Go. Come on, Shona, let's go.

Just like Xand, our volunteers have trouble.

But get faster after a few goes.

Getting better. Oh, look at that.

With the glasses off...

Go!

How will they do now? The class are still struggling.

You were slower without the glasses.

Who thinks they understand now what's happening?

I think the brain is trying to get used to a different

way of looking at things, but if you take the glasses off then

it's kind of like you try and get in focus.

Naomi is almost right.

These glasses shift everything in Xand's visual world a little

bit to the left and that means when he puts them on,

his brain has to rewire itself so that this new world appears normal.

But then, when he takes them off, he has to re-rewire his brain

in order than his normal visual world appears normal once again.

So, this shows how quickly your brain adapts to

the changes around you.

I must say, Chris, after that I feel absolutely full of beans.

I mean, it's "bean" amazing.

Xand, I think that's enough with the bean puns.

I mean, you could almost say, when you explained it to everyone

at the end, that you had to... spill the beans.

Now, did you know skin is your body's largest organ?

It has a surface area of roughly two square metres.

That's about the size of a bedsheet.

We're at a theme park to solve your medical mysteries.

Xand is preparing the Ouch-mobile ready for his first patient.

And Chris is Ouch & About in the park

to answer your burning questions.

Wow, I'm impressed.

-Next patient, please.

-Hello, Dr Xand.

First into the clinic, is Rosie, who's asking about her arms.

So Rosie, why have you come to the Ouch-mobile?

I've got some bumpy chicken skin on my arms and I want to know why.

It sounds like a case of...

Would you mind opening the eyelid for the Ouch-cam?

That's good.

Oh, yeah, look, Rosie's arm is red and bumpy.

I've had this since I was born and I don't know, really, much about it.

Do you know the actual name for this condition?

That's right.

Now, Keratosis refers to the idea of keratin, which is a protein

which covers your skin.

And keratin's a very tough protein,

so it's what fingernails are made of,

it's what rhino's horns are made of.

And you can see those bits of dry skin there,

all that flaky stuff, that's keratin.

Now, the keratin can block pores and follicles,

these little openings in your skin, and that causes bumps.

It's important to say this isn't a disease or an illness,

it's just a common, normal part of being a human being.

Most people at some point in their life get some of it.

So, Rosie, thank you very much for bringing your amazing

arms to the Ouch-mobile.

Thank you for having me.

Away from the clinic, Chris is Ouch & About in the park.

Any questions? Medical questions.

What are boogers made out of?

So, do you know why your body makes boogers?

It's to trap dust and insects and germs as you breathe them in,

so they don't get into your lungs.

So, it's just a sticky mess made of protein

and everything that you inhale sticks to it.

Back at the Ouch-mobile there's a new case in the waiting room.

Next patient, please.

And it's nine-year-old Jamie with a tale about his tum.

I have got an interesting scar on my tummy.

It sounds like a case of...

-Now, can we have a look?

-Yeah.

So, what I want you to do, is lift up the eye for the Ouch-cam.

Jamie had an operation to take out a hernia a few years ago.

-Do you have any questions?

-Yeah, what is a hernia?

What a hernia really is, is a little bit of the stuff that's in your

tummy, all inside here, your guts, poking through a hole in your wall.

So, it's sitting under his skin, not hanging out, but still

creating a lump, cos it's in a space where it shouldn't be.

Now that didn't cause you any problems,

so you think why do we need to do the hernia operation?

The reason we do the operation, is because, occasionally,

it can get twisted.

If you twist your guts, guess what?

The food can't get through, your guts get blocked up,

it gets very painful.

So we do the hernia operation to prevent you needing

an emergency operation.

Jamie, thank you very much for bringing in your cool scar

and your interesting hernia story.

Thank you, Dr Xand.

Job done for today. Clinic closed.

Your body is amazing, but sometimes it needs fixing.

All over the UK, there are special teams of professionals

trained to tackle medical mysteries.

There are around 25,000 blind or partially sighted kids in the UK.

Now, there are lots of different ways of being partially sighted.

Some kids will have a part of their vision missing entirely,

that's called a blind spot.

For other kids, their vision will look fuzzy or out of focus.

This can make everyday activities, such as texting or

walking down the street, less simple than they seem.

I've come to meet ten-year-old Ryan.

-Hi, Dr Chris, come in.

-Thank you.

Ryan is partially sighted.

Everything looks blurry to him and it's worse in his right eye.

-Now, because you've got so much less vision in that eye...

-Yeah.

Do you find, what we call depth perception, difficult?

Yes. I actually have none.

Depth perception allows you to judge how far away things are.

Can you get your fingers in front of your eyes and put them

together like that?

No.

You can try that at home.

Try and bring your fingers together and touch them.

You need both eyes working together.

If I close my eye, it's much, much harder.

Lack of depth perception

makes everyday activities a bit more difficult.

Luckily for Ryan, there are people like Sharon,

from the charity, Blind Children UK, to help.

-Has Sharon been helpful for you?

-Yes.

What's she been showing you?

How to cross roads and how to cook and make drinks.

Ryan's carrying a cane to let other people know that he's

partially sighted.

And he uses parked vehicles, as they offer some protection whilst

allowing him to take up a good seeing

and hearing position on the road.

-Do you want to show me how to cross the road?

-OK.

Well, first we'll feel if the engine's on or off.

OK.

We make sure it's off and we stand at the front,

so if the driver is in it, he'll see us.

Yeah, and so if he reverses we won't get flattened, either.

Right. So this is all about not getting flattened.

Yes.

No flattening.

Now, we're going to use our hand to trail along to the edge of the car.

-So down, good.

-So, now, what do we do, Ryan?

We are going to look and listen for a car.

-So what do you think, are we safe to cross?

-No.

-Aren't we?

-No.

Oh, look at that, Ryan's completely right.

I would have crossed the road.

Ryan just heard a car before I did,

that I would have just walked out in front of.

How about now? Are we safe to cross?

-Yes.

-Off we go.

Ryan relies on his hearing as compensation for his lack of vision.

-Great job.

-Thank you.

How about a high five. Life saved.

Chris, would you like to know what it's like to just use your hearing?

Yeah, I would. Oh, an eye mask.

Thank you very much.

Of course, I'm not actually going to cross the road,

as that would be dangerous.

Also, Ryan is very used to his condition,

so I reckon I'm at an disadvantage here.

Where is... where is the car?

Here we go, OK I've got the car.

I can definitely hear a car now.

I absolutely cannot tell what's a car coming toward us,

what's that car going away.

I would say it is now safe to cross.

-It is safe to cross.

-It is safe to cross, OK.

I have to say, I do not feel confident, even with you

and Ryan advising me.

There are other practical things that can help Ryan be more

independent as well, like gadgets.

So, Ryan, what are we doing here?

Learning how to use a liquid level indicator.

A liquid level indicator.

As the water gets near the rim the emitter lets off a beep to

let Ryan know the glass is almost full.

-BEEPING

-Oh, hello.

The indicator then makes a second faster beep when the liquid

reaches the top of the glass and that's useful for adding squash.

-Here.

-Oh, wow, now we're really about to spill.

FASTER BEEPING

Is this your kind of music?

Yeah.

That is literally the worst dance tune I've ever heard.

Yeah.

It's easy to forget how much we use our eyes for even the smallest

things and for blind or partially sighted kids, like Ryan, these

little things can be really tricky.

Luckily with gadgets and special mobility training,

Ryan can get on with the more important things in life,

like dancing to the sound of his liquid level indicator.

In accident and emergency, there's another

patient in need of some help.

-Let's go and meet him.

-Tim? He's called Mohammed.

In Liverpool, nine-year-old Mohammed, is in accident

and emergency after a fall at a fairground.

I fell and twisted my leg.

Let's find out more about Mohammed's agonising injury.

It was a beautiful sunny day.

Hang on, Chris, wasn't it the school holidays?

-Oh, yeah.

-That's better.

Perfect. So, Mohammed and his family went to the local funfair.

Oh, look, there's candyfloss, my favourite.

There are lots of rides, too.

Can we go on the carousel? Or the pirate ship?

Xander, we're not there.

Mohammed is, and he's on a bouncy castle slide.

Whee!

He was having great fun bouncing up and down the slide,

but then he bounced off the bottom and twisted his leg when he landed.

Ouch!

It hurts a lot.

Here to delve a little deeper, is consultant, Mr Andrew Dapaah.

Where is it most painful?

On the top, here.

Mr Dapaah checks how much movement Mohammed has in his leg.

Can you just move your toes for me?

-OK.

-Yeah, very good.

Can you move your whole foot up a little bit?

He's not managing to move it much there, Chris.

-Is that painful?

-Yeah.

-OK.

Mohammed has had some X-rays and it's clear there's a nasty break.

Our X-rays have shown that he's got what

we call a spiral fracture of his...

Just at the bottom of his leg.

Mohammed has a spiral fracture of the tibia,

the big bone in his lower leg.

A spiral fracture is caused by a twisting force along the bone.

This kind of fracture is different, because the break is circular,

not straight.

Mohammed, you're doing fantastic, well done.

So, now, Mohammed's getting a temporary cast called a back

slab, so if his leg swells up, it won't get squashed.

OK, you're all done there, mister.

And then it's off to X-ray to make sure the cast is holding

the bones in the correct position.

Nice and still. Lovely, all done.

And the verdict from the new X-ray?

That all looks fine.

I've chatted to my bosses about it, so we'll let you go home

and then we'll see you back in a few days.

-Is that all right?

-OK, yeah.

And have we learned any lessons, Mohammed?

I won't be going on a bouncy castle slide any more...

Ever again.

Fair enough.

Mohammed's cast will be swapped in a few days for a full plaster one,

but, for now, Mohammed and his temporary set of wheels

-are off home.

-Bye, Mohammed.

-Bye.

Next time on Operation Ouch...

Meet our tiny new lab assistant.

I've got mini-Xand to help me.

More brains are baffled in Mindbenders.

That's crazy.

And find out how scientists fight infectious disease.

I'm about to show you how we do it.

So, we'll see you next time.

For more Operation Ouch!

Chris, wait for me!

Chris, would you like another glass of orange juice?

Yes.

Mmm! Smooth.