From Soup to Poop!
    By Scientist Cindy

A Bowl of Soup

    This is a story 
about a noodle
    that lived in a bowl
in a town called Snoodle.
    His name was Gus and
he lived in a soup
    before he turned into
​a piece of poop!

  
​               You may be wondering 
how this could be.
    I will tell you if you'll 
listen to me.
    Gus was awoken 
from his sleep
    and he found himself in an 
​Oral Cavity!

   
​ Another one is called the Submandibular,
    it lies in the jaw
to be particular.

The Oral Cavity

     He looked around
and said, "Oh, Damn",
    as Saliva arose from the
Salivary Glands.
    There's more than one.
In fact, there are three.
    One's the Parotid Gland
that lies at the cheek.

   The Sublingual Gland 
is the last one;
    the salivary gland 
that lies under the tongue. ​

     The Tongue grabbed a hold
of our little Gus
     and he went down the Pharynx and Esophagus.


  The Peristaltic motion
was pushing him down. 
   Gus was afraid and he
​started to frown. 

   He passed a section called the Fundus, too.
    From the region to region
Gus traveled on through
    from the Cardiac to the Body Region.
    He tried to hang on. For the Rugae he was reachin'.

    In the Stomach he was tossed
to and fro,
    and from the Rugae he
had to let go.
    It was like riding a
bucking bronco.
    On to the Pyloric
Region he'd go.

    From the Stomach, onto the
Duodenum.
    Here digestive enzymes
finally got to him.

    until they were broken
into molecules
    that were small enough to
​be made into fuel.

    The molecules traveled through the Intestinal Wall
    and entered the bloodstream. And then after all,

    from there those building blocks can be reused
    to form ATP that our
​bodies can use.

    Gus continued through this
part of intestine
    and onto the Ileum part
he was destined.

    He finally reached the 
Ileocecal Valve
    where only digested
chyme was allowed.

   Gus was all processed
and thoroughly too!
    Enough that the valve allowed him to go through.

     He was in a place with the appendix beneath him,
     in part of the colon that is
​called the Cecum.

     Then the Colon made a turn for the worse.
     I couldn't find something to rhyme with this verse,
    except that this section is
called the transverse
    part of the colon he had to traverse.
   Don't worry, my rhyming just can't get much worse. 

     There were some turns that
he could not avoid
     in the last of the colon,
called the Sigmoid.

   Next, Gus entered
the Anal Tube.
   He was exhausted. He
could hardly move. 

   And what lay ahead for
our little stinker?
   The final exit called
the Anal Sphincter.

   The noodle named Gus
experienced no solace.
    The Saliva turned 
him into a Bolus. 

     He concentrated trying to
use his thinker,
    As he squeezed through the Cardiac Sphincter.

   Inside the Stomach 
the contents were churning.
   Gus was swept up and was
tossing and turning.

    The Sphincter had closed. 
He could not turn back.
    He was in the region called the Cardiac.

    The duodenum was flooded with 
Pancreatic Juice. 
     Then from the liver bile was introduced.

    Some of the bile came from
the Gall Bladder
    where it is concentrated,
in case it should matter.

​     The Bile and Juice 
worked in no time
    and broke down the larger components of Chyme.

   But what of our Gus that was stuck in the Duodenum
   of the Small Intestine? What there any problem?
​
    He went to the next region
called the Jejunum. 
    It twisted and turned as Gus traveled through them.

    From there our Gus left the Cecum, ascending
    up through the darkness;
his journey unending.  

     He traveled through the Ascending Colon.
    Gus was unhappy.
He'd rather be bowlin'!

     Gus then noticed that
he had turned brown.
      He though this was strange as the colon turned down

      Down the Descending
Colon Gus flew.
      He noticed he smelled and
he said, "Pee Yew!"

    Bumped and bruised, like someone had decked him,
    Gus ended up in the
​part called the Rectum.

  And boy did Gus now have
a story to tell!
The poor thing really did
go through hell.

He started out in a
bowl of hot soup,
but ended up as a
​brown piece of poop.

EXPLORE THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM!

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Visit the digestive system anatomy page!