February 19, 2007

Fireballs in My Eucharist!

One of my favorite Kentucky mis-pronunciations comes from a story of Ben's mom, Sue. She's a pharmacist in Lexington, and some of the clients come into the pharmacy not really understanding what their doctor has told them, and approximate their diagnosis as best they can. One particular woman told them, she needed medicine because "my doctor tole me I got fireballs in my eucharist." After many questions while trying desperately to keep a straight face, Sue realized the woman had, not a large meteor in her consecrated bread, but fibroids in her uterus.
Imagine my delight, then, when studying leiomyomas of the uterus last night, I came across not only the words, "in human women, this type of neoplasm is commonly referred to as a 'fibroid'," but also this picture. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, a Fireball in a Eucharist.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

just to clarify...

Leiomyoma are common benign neoplasms often called fibroids.

Leiomyosarcoma are malignant neoplasms that are rare, and not usually called fibroids.

--eileen

Unknown said...

Thanks Eileen! Fixed.

Kenn Minter said...

Yuck! That's a big fireball!