I do not own the TMNT.
Warning! I show off what I've learned in Hematology here!
This chapter is rated K for sterile usage of blood.
What's on the Inside
Donnie dipped the hemostat into the tube, patiently waiting until the blood was pulled up past the mark. He then set the tiny, glass hemostat down and re-capped the tube with its purple stopper before putting it back on the chemical rocker Donnie had jerry-rigged together.
He then carefully lifted the glass hemostat, wishing that he had more delicate fingers to do this work with as he tapped a drop of blood onto the slide. Putting the hemostat aside, Donnie lifted a second slide and placed its edge against the glass of the first. The second slide was pulled back into the drop of blood, then pushed forward. Don smiled when he saw the near perfect feathering effect.
While the blood dried, Don cleaned up the hemostat and the spreader slide, placing them both in a shallow tray of cleaning solution because he couldn't afford to throw anything away. He then pulled three jars out of their proper place in a cabinet and set them out. Now that the blood was completely dry he dipped it carefully into each jar, counting under his breath and carefully collecting the excess that leaked off; he couldn't afford to waste a single drop of the chemicals.
After dipping the slide in the three jars Donnie carefully rinsed with distilled water and waited impatiently for it to again dry. Finally he had a fully prepared blood smear. Donnie placed it on the stage of the microscope and easily focused until he could clearly see the bluish spheres with pink and blue blobs that made up his blood.
He couldn't help but frown. Normal red blood cells were bi-concave; that is they looked a little like donuts where the frosting had partially filled the hole. But the red blood cells of himself, his brothers and their friend Leatherhead were different. Instead of a pale center on their red blood cells there was a large dark mass. The nucleus. Only reptiles and birds had nuclei in healthy mature red blood cells. Humans most certainly did not. Not even rats such as Donnie's adoptive father had this characteristic in their blood.
April would often smile at him and his brothers and announce that it was "What's on the inside that counts."
Donnie knew that this wasn't what she had meant, but every time she said that he couldn't help but think back to these slides.
It was what was on the inside that counted.
And on the inside they were still just as different as they were on the outside.