Want to see something really nasty?

I'm gaining new medical knowledge already, and I haven't even applied for med school yet! This beautiful picture is of a tonsil stone, also called a tonsillolith. Sadly, this is just an internet image and not a picture of the actual stone I removed from my tonsil today, but it gives you an idea of the nastiness (mine was much more impressive but shriveled a bit after extraction and is no longer all that photogenic). For those of you who, like me, had never heard of tonsilloliths, they are calcified ick (I believe that's the technical term) that grows in the "crypts" of your tonsil (no part of a body should be called a crypt, in my opinion, seems sort of morbid) and forms a pearl-like stone. Like an ice berg, mine was more subterranean than terranean and left a sizable hole in my tonsil after I extracted it with a QTip. I can't overstate the relief I feel now that it's not rubbing against the inside of my mouth and throat every time I swallow or breathe or eat. Don't say I never taught you anything!