Introduction

I'd like to tell you a story about a friend of mine. Doctor Glycine.
Doctor Glycine is a veterinarian, or 'vet', that means he is a doctor that takes care of animals.
He lives inside a humongous space colony going around a star very far away.
The animals he takes care of are pets of all the people in the colony.
There are all kinds of weird animals from hundreds of different planets.
They are Space Pets.
He is a Space Pet Vet.

Doctor Glycine is an android.
An android is a special kind of robot that looks like a human.
Androids are very nice, and very smart.
Doctor Glycine does a good job of helping animals when they get sick or hurt.

Bones - Telsca

A Telsca is a long thin animal from the planet Mintaka 7. They have two feet at their front, and two at the back, and their body is high in the air, with a bend in the middle. Their eyes are at the top of their body where it bends, and their mouth is at the front, near their big front legs. They move by hoping their front feetin into the air and pushing them forward, then reversing the move, they contract and bring up their rear feet. If they are in a hurry, they can hop on just their front feet.
Matt has a pet Telsca named Bandit. Today Matt took bandit to the playground with him. Bandit tried to climb up the jungle-gym to be with Matt, but when he got near the top, one of his feet slipped, and he fell down.
Bandit wouldn't move anywhere, and hooted like he was scared, so Matt called his mother, and his Mother called Doctor Glycine.
Doctor Glycine said that Bandit broke one of his bones. Bones are hard parts inside animals and humans. They let the animal hold its shape. A Telsca has two long bones, where they meet at the top is a joint, which lets the animal bend. Bones are very strong, but if they are hit hard enough, they can break.
Matt asked if Bandit was going to be OK. Doctor Glycine said that Bandit would just have to wear a cast, and rest for a month or two, but first Doctor Glycine would have to set the bone.
When a bone breaks, sometime the two broken ends don't line up the way that they should, and sometims the body part will bend in funny ways. In order to heal, the bone has to be in it's normal position. A medical robot or a Doctor will carefully put the peices of bone back where they should be, this is called setting the bone. It can hurt, but that hurt doesn't last very long, and it's the only way to make the bone heal in the right shape.
Bandit hooted loudly when Doctor Glycine set the bone, he was so angry! Right after he was done, he wraped a big plastic tube around the front half of Bandit's body, all the way from his feet to his eyes. He pressed a button, and the tube shrank a little and got hard like a rock.
"This is a cast, it will keep the bone in place. The peices of the bone have to be kept together while it heals."
Humans are born with about 270 bones, as you grow, some of them fuse (grow into each other) so a grownup only has 206 bones. All your bones together are your skeleton. Telsca's only have 2 bones.
Some bones contain marrow. In humans marrow makes white blood cells, which fight infection to keep you from getting sick. Bandit's bones filter toxins from his blood.
There are many different kinds of bone. Long bones like in your legs and arms let you move. Your ribs protect your heart and lungs. Your skull is a big round group of bones that protects your big round brain. Your backbone is made up of many bones called vertebrae, it protects your spinal column, which lets your brain control your body. Bandit has a small brain, and no spine, which is why he followed Matt up the jungle-gym and got hurt. Using your brain (and spine) will help you prevent breaking a bone.
A joint is a place where two bones meet and can move. Bandit has one joint, at his top. You have joints at your elbows, knees, wrists shoulders and hips. Where else do you have joints? Were else can you move?
Do you know where your smallest bones are? They are in your ear! Three tiny bones move vibrations from your eardrum to a bundle of nerves that is sensitive to sound vibrations. Telsca's do not have ears in the conventional sense, but that's another story.

Bandit healed more slowly than expected, but about three months later, Matt brought him back to see Dr. Glycine. Bandit could move again but while he was wearing the cast, he was even more clumsy and made loud noises with every step when the cast touched the floor. Whump, sput, Whump, sput, Whump, sput.
Dr. Glycine Pushed some more buttons, and the cast puffed up back into a big plastic tube. Bandit squeezed out and hooted like a happy telsca.

Lungs

Today, a girl named Samantha and her father came into Doctor Glycine's office with her stump-eater, Casey.
Casey was sick, and couldn't breathe very well.

A Stump-Eater is an animal from the planet Sopreevo. They eat wood, usually you can find them chewing on a tree stump, that is why they are called stump-eaters.
Stump-eaters have four legs, and one head, sticking out of a hard shell, like a turtle.
But they are not turtles!
People say a turtle carries it's house on it's back, and so does a stump eater, but a stump eater also carries it's lung on it's back.

The lung is the part of the body, or organ, that lets an animal breathe air. Most animals have lungs inside their body, and tubes to let the air get in and out. Stumpeaters have their lung on the top of their shell, with just a hole to breathe through.
The lung is like a bag that holds air. There is a breathing muscle that makes the lung get big or small. When the lung gets big, good air comes in, and goes into the animals' blood. When the lung gets small, bad air gets pushed out.

Samantha said Casey didn't want to play anymore, and kept his head inside his shell. Doctor Glycine looked at Casey.
He shined a light in casey's eyes,
and wanted to shine a light into casey's mouth,
but Casey wouldn't open his mouth
or even stick his head out!
Next, Doctor Glycine looked into Casey's breathing hole.
"Aha!" he said.
"What is it?" Asked Samantha.
"The inside of Caseys breathing hole is yellow, but it should be purple.
He has an infection. His aveoli are getting clogged."
"Oh no!" Samantha said "What are those?"

Aveoli are tiny air sacs in the lung that do the job of gas exchange: putting air into the blood, and taking it out again. Lungs are not just one big bag, they are millions of [many, many] individual mini-lungs. This make lungs transfer a lot more air. If lungs were hollow, like an ordinary bag, blood could only flow on the outside surface. By having lots of aveoli, the middle parts of the lung are also used. The aveoli are connected to the breathing hole with brochial tubes, or 'bronchi' that branch out from te breathing hole.

On earth some animals, like frogs, do not have aveoli. They can still survive because they do not need much oxygen, and they also absorb some oxygen directly through their skin.

Samantha thought about this, and asked a question, "Is my lung just like Casey's?"

• You have two lungs, one on your Left side, and one on your Right side, Casey only has one.
• Casey has a breathing muscle that sqeezes his lung to push out the bad air, but you have a breathing muscle called a diaphragm that expands your chest, so the lungs suck in air.
• Your lungs are inside your body, so you have a tube called a trachea that goes from your lung to the bottom of your throat. You breathe through the same hole you eat through.
• Casey does not breathe through his mouth, and he does not have a nose!

Doctor Glycine did a few other tests to make sure he was right about the infection. Machines went BEEP BEEP BEEP, and told him he was right. He gave Samantha's father a bottle of a medicine called an antibiotic.
"Put a capful of this into a fresh bowl of water every day. Keep doing it for two weeks, even after he gets better"
"Will it take long?" Samantha asked.
"No, he will be playing again in a couple of days."

Notes for Parents

These stories are intended to told to children, rather than simply read. For best results, read the story, memorize the basics, then tell the story as if Dr. Glycine were a friend of yours.

I try to keep the language as simple as possible, younger children might lose interest in the stories as written. You may wish to omit complex passages.