The pulmonary vein carries oxygenated blood. Sorry, I had to be pedantic 
I once had an exam in anatomy and me answering “veins carry oxygenated blood” made the professor just unbelievably angry, he went absolutely apeshit and he threw me out, the pompous prick. So I try to save others the emberassment 
OK OK
Veins with the exception of the pulmonary veins carry deoxygenated blood
Arteries with the exception of the pulmonary arteries carry oxygenated blood.
Going to heart = vein
Going away from heart = artery
is how I think about it.
I’m not a doctor, but the one definition I remember from biology classes at school is: high pressure + stiff walled = arteries, low-pressure + soft walled = veins.
Low pressure + stiff walls = heroin addict?
I personally feel this varies person to person. I’ve had to try and find veins on people, and they all had a pulse.
On the flip side, I cannulated some radial arteries that were extremely deep and I has to use ultrasound.
Because every good ghost story ends with "and some say he’s still out/in there… to this day… "
Ha! No such thing as pedantic in medicine and yes you are right!
I find that the variation for cannulating / phlebotomy is more about size of the superficial veins vs adiposity of the patient, the underlying anatomy doesn’t change that much. With regard to arteries they are pretty much always in the same spot no matter the size and I’ve stuck some big fucking needles into some groins when I needed that femoral stab.
So @greydoc,
Super cliff notes, and general guess because we only know so much that can be validated
Does the idea of a 2mm vein obstruction in your lungs being “asymptotic” sound ballpark possible?
I just can’t wrap my head around something that large not causing issues
Much riskier to try to remove it I bet.
Ok literally just a thought experiment
Absolutely do not want and do not do, literally makes my skin crawl to imagine something inhaled into your lung
But just curious, does the glass or bio goo, used to make things biocompatible
Does that compatibility change if it’s inside the “air part” of the lung… I have no idea the medical term
Versus inside your flesh like inside a vein or under the Dermis?
Or would that still cause an infection or badness somehow?
Might depend a lot on what part of the world you live in, but for me, this thread currently is having its first anniversary!
Soooo…
For this thread, Pilgrim who started it, and this insane community!
My baby is having a birthday
A perfect unicorn gift from Aunty @Coma Thanks
There are 4018 replies with an estimated read time of 553 minutes .
That is over 9 hours of some really ridiculous conversations also some equally interesting and civilised ones
Well done US
Happy arbitrary star cycle celebration, Thready!!
Well note, @Coma !! ^^
Also… if it has a birthday, it needs a name!
So, @Pilgrimsmaster , it’s time to fulfill your duties and name your thread baby! 
(and the title is it’s job, so not a valid name!) 
That is part of the reason I constantly keep an eye on this thread. I don’t want to have to spend weeks trying to catch up again 
. Besides, the conversations here are super interesting most of the time.
How about the classic, Thready McThread-Face?
Thought that was a particularity of british intelect (or lack of thereoft?)
Although… that sure does sound like a perfect name!! 
Honestly don’t know, my gut feeling would be that it would undoubtedly affect the tissue supplied by that artery but you can see on the CTPA scan that if the object is stuck in an artery then it’s not fully occluding that artery as there is downstream flow and that there doesn’t appear to be any change in radio opacity surrounding the object thus suggesting no localised change in tissue such as ischemia or inflammation.
Maybe we’ll never know…
I think the best course of action to find out for sure is vivisection at this point.