by Mikki McLeod

Created on: August 21, 2008

UNDER THE BAND-AID

"Duck Duck Duck Goose!" Susie yelled, tapping Penny on the head. Penny jumped up to chase her and tripped over her own shoelace. She fell down and cut her knee.

"Owe!" Penny cried, as she covered her knee with both hands. Her knee was bleeding and stung from the playground gravel inside the cut. Penny didn't know that before her teacher could rush to help, her knee was already starting to heal.

Your body has super powers, that I call "super healers." They come to the rescue when you get a scrape or cut. The first super healers rushing to help are called platelets (playt-lets). Platelets are special blood cells that quickly stick together to form a clot (klot). A clot is your body's own Band-Aid it's like a plug that helps stop the bleeding.

This clot or plug is filled with other super healers called fibrin (fy-brin). Fibrin helps with clotting by making a web of tiny threads which help hold the clot together.
Without fibrin, you'd need a lot more than a Band-Aid to stop the bleeding.

The last super healer rushing to the scene is plasma (plaz-ma). Plasma carries proteins that are really important to help with healing. Plasma works with your white blood cells, to get rid of all the bad stuff and waste that your blood cells don't want anymore. Plasma also helps with the clean up, keeping the cut from getting infected.

Now even though on the outside, Penny and her teacher have done their best to clean out the cut and bandage it up; it's all the stuff going on inside that is really doing all the hard work. Her body is working non-stop to create its own Band-Aid called a scab.

Once the scab is formed, that's when the real healing begins. Under the scab, Penny's white blood cells are attacking all the germs that have gotten into the cut. They also work with the plasma to dissolve any dead blood and skin cells. All of this is to prepare Penny's cut for a new layer of skin hopefully scar free.

After a few days, Penny didn't need her Band-Aid. Her scab had sealed her cut, protecting her knee. Then after a week or so, the scab fell off. Penny had new skin on her knee, healed and ready for another round of "Duck, Duck, Goose," and double knotted shoelaces.

This article was inspired by a little girl I overheard in the airport. She turned to her dad and asked, "where did my boo-boo go?" I asked myself the same question ...

Learn more about this author, Mikki McLeod.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.