(no subject)
one more time: this wasn't for a science class.
it was for mpsa, we were looking at how the vocal chords, etc work.
our entire prep session was a talk about how the girls needed to get over the surprise they might find if they'd never before seen the unmentionables of a male, and the lecture of how special the gift of a body was. we were given gloves and in we went.
you walk into the room and yr suddenly in a horror movie, surrounded by about 15 tables, each occupied by a body bag. i had myself convinced that when i was least expecting, each bag would unzip and the bodies inside would come out to eat me. i'm completely rational, i know, you don't have to tell me.
beth (the lady that i will be calling 'she' in the future) unzipped a red bag, revealing an expired human being. the lower body and face were covered with pieces of cloth stained yellow with formeldehyde. the body had been previously prepared, so she easily peeled back the layer of skin covering the ribs. i still have a picture of her folding back the man's brown, leathery skin burned into my memory. a piece had been cut out of the ribcage, so she lifted it up and there was a lung and a heart. she explained that he had, during his lifetime, gotten a lung removed, so his heart had moved over. she pulled out the lung and proceeded to pass it around as she would later with the heart and liver pieces.
i held a dead man's lung in my hands.
i held a dead man's heart in my hands.
i was terrified that i would drop them.
my gloves had started getting a yellow tint from the formeldehyde.
she explained that the lungs are supposed to be soft and malleable, if they aren't, it's from cancer generally. this man had slight emphesyma where there was a large black spot, but people naturally get small black dotting on their lungs. i'm going to gloss over the rest of the chest area now because i attempted to not pay attention so as to not get sick. the smell of the slightly decayed flesh and preservative had started getting to me, so by now i was only breathing out of my mouth.
we didn't see much lower than the stomach area, and i'm pretty happy about that. i don't think i wanted to see anything underneath the cloth.
she lifted off his face cloth, revealing a man in his 80's or 90's. his nose and mouth had experienced some pressure after his expiration (as the other heads we saw later had) and so they were flattened somewhat. he still had some hair, though - nose, eyebrows, chin hairs. thankfully his eyes were closed. i wouldn't have been able to look at him if his eyes had been open. it would've been too much.
i looked at the clock; it was 8:25, and i proceeded to look at it every five minutes after that.
we saw into his mouth, his tongue, soft palate, hard palate, even his gold-filled cavities. everything was intact. i avoided looking at him during these times, too.
i wanted to leave the room because i was tired, coughing, and aching to sit down, but i decided that if i were to leave, they might as well have just had someone else there.
we went to another table to look at some more heads - the table that had the box labeled "half and whole heads." yum.
one of the heads was opened from the back so we saw the inside of the back of it. all of the body parts were a sickly brownish color.
near the end, she showed us the arm because she said most people find it interesting. someone asked why you can't move yr ring finger independently and she explained by showing the movement of the fingers and how they were connected.
she used a tool to work the fingers and it was extremely scary to see the fingers of this dead person moving again.
by now, another lady had come in to start working. when we were finished, we walked over near her to the sink. she had covered the face of the cadaver she was working on with the side of the bag.
i think covering it makes it easier for the lab workers to forget that it's an actual human body, so that they don't become physically ill or hysterical or something.
anyway, we were given many chances to touch the body: skin, diaphragm, muscles, etc. i avoided contact.
all in all, it was definitely a special experience. i'll probably never forget it, nor will i quickly drop the pictures from my memory. i'm grateful that i got to go, and i'll probably end up donating my body to science.
do i believe that i went? no, i don't. not yet. i can't. it still feels like a cloudy dream. i saw the insides of another human being yesterday.
at least i know i'll never be able to go into medicine because i'll never be able to handle that again.
it was for mpsa, we were looking at how the vocal chords, etc work.
our entire prep session was a talk about how the girls needed to get over the surprise they might find if they'd never before seen the unmentionables of a male, and the lecture of how special the gift of a body was. we were given gloves and in we went.
you walk into the room and yr suddenly in a horror movie, surrounded by about 15 tables, each occupied by a body bag. i had myself convinced that when i was least expecting, each bag would unzip and the bodies inside would come out to eat me. i'm completely rational, i know, you don't have to tell me.
beth (the lady that i will be calling 'she' in the future) unzipped a red bag, revealing an expired human being. the lower body and face were covered with pieces of cloth stained yellow with formeldehyde. the body had been previously prepared, so she easily peeled back the layer of skin covering the ribs. i still have a picture of her folding back the man's brown, leathery skin burned into my memory. a piece had been cut out of the ribcage, so she lifted it up and there was a lung and a heart. she explained that he had, during his lifetime, gotten a lung removed, so his heart had moved over. she pulled out the lung and proceeded to pass it around as she would later with the heart and liver pieces.
i held a dead man's lung in my hands.
i held a dead man's heart in my hands.
i was terrified that i would drop them.
my gloves had started getting a yellow tint from the formeldehyde.
she explained that the lungs are supposed to be soft and malleable, if they aren't, it's from cancer generally. this man had slight emphesyma where there was a large black spot, but people naturally get small black dotting on their lungs. i'm going to gloss over the rest of the chest area now because i attempted to not pay attention so as to not get sick. the smell of the slightly decayed flesh and preservative had started getting to me, so by now i was only breathing out of my mouth.
we didn't see much lower than the stomach area, and i'm pretty happy about that. i don't think i wanted to see anything underneath the cloth.
she lifted off his face cloth, revealing a man in his 80's or 90's. his nose and mouth had experienced some pressure after his expiration (as the other heads we saw later had) and so they were flattened somewhat. he still had some hair, though - nose, eyebrows, chin hairs. thankfully his eyes were closed. i wouldn't have been able to look at him if his eyes had been open. it would've been too much.
i looked at the clock; it was 8:25, and i proceeded to look at it every five minutes after that.
we saw into his mouth, his tongue, soft palate, hard palate, even his gold-filled cavities. everything was intact. i avoided looking at him during these times, too.
i wanted to leave the room because i was tired, coughing, and aching to sit down, but i decided that if i were to leave, they might as well have just had someone else there.
we went to another table to look at some more heads - the table that had the box labeled "half and whole heads." yum.
one of the heads was opened from the back so we saw the inside of the back of it. all of the body parts were a sickly brownish color.
near the end, she showed us the arm because she said most people find it interesting. someone asked why you can't move yr ring finger independently and she explained by showing the movement of the fingers and how they were connected.
she used a tool to work the fingers and it was extremely scary to see the fingers of this dead person moving again.
by now, another lady had come in to start working. when we were finished, we walked over near her to the sink. she had covered the face of the cadaver she was working on with the side of the bag.
i think covering it makes it easier for the lab workers to forget that it's an actual human body, so that they don't become physically ill or hysterical or something.
anyway, we were given many chances to touch the body: skin, diaphragm, muscles, etc. i avoided contact.
all in all, it was definitely a special experience. i'll probably never forget it, nor will i quickly drop the pictures from my memory. i'm grateful that i got to go, and i'll probably end up donating my body to science.
do i believe that i went? no, i don't. not yet. i can't. it still feels like a cloudy dream. i saw the insides of another human being yesterday.
at least i know i'll never be able to go into medicine because i'll never be able to handle that again.