new term started

So, we started a new term. Classes are:

Cadaver anatomy
Patient Care Skills I
Patient Care Skills 2 (including massage!)
Research
Physiology

Goodness gracious, I've never seen so many books for one single term before. Here's the rundown:

Cadaver anatomy--- this is going to be more fun than I thought it would be. It may be one of my favorite classes, in fact. We had a memorial service for the cadavers yesterday, in which a campus chaplain (remember, this is a Christian school) prayed over the cadavers in a non-sectarian way. He also included in the prayer, not very subtly, several reminders to be respectful of them and a reminder that we could go to see him if we were having difficulty with the whole cadaver idea.

For the record, cadavers are preserved in formaldehyde when we're not using them. Yes, they smell. Yes, the fumes get in your clothes and on your skin, and a shower does not remove the smell, and I expect to smell like formaldehyde for several months.

The textbook for that class is Grant's Dissector. It includes detailed instructions for where to cut and what to look at. Nice. Scary, but nice.

Patient Care Skills I and II: Ah yes, I finally feel like a PT student. Reading for I was an entire chapter on moving and positioning a patient. Reading for II is an entire chapter on taking notes (remember, the notes are a legal document and EVERYTHING a PT does with a patient is documented. Yipe!)

The funny part here is that women are required to wear halter tops or bathing suit tops for lab, because they need access to your back. This is no problem for me-- DeAnza College had exactly the same dress requirement-- but every other woman in the class is squawking. They all think they are going to wear tank tops. I suspect that the instructor will give them a talking-to when we have lab today, and they will re-evaluate.

I don't own any damn halter tops. The best I can figure it that I will buy a halter top bra, and go buy some cheap, cute fabric to go over it, and make a halter top that is sewn to the bra. I'm not sure. I'll wait and see how the situation develops.

I haven't had Research yet.

Physiology looks hard, but if I put the study time in, I should be fine.

Other than that, I used my no-homework weekend to go to a women's racing clinic in Atlanta. I am now equipped to be a baby bike racer, something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Trouble is, it turns out that my faithful Trek 2120 is heavier and clunkier than the average racing bike... and using it would be like running a footrace with ankle weights. Uh oh. A new bike (or even a used one) is expensive, and I just don't have the budget for that. I'm asking around to see who has what components, or frames, I can use to upgrade. I already found some wheels with Ultegra hubs and Mavic rims on eBay. Now to see if I can upgrade pedals and gears.

Today was the cadaver day.

Today was the cadaver lab day.

Warning: GROSS POSTING.... up close and personal with cadavers... I warned you!

As it got closer and closer to the lab time, I got more and more quiet. I was wigging out, in my own don't-let-it-show way.

We changed out (you wear scrubs and old shoes in the cadaver lab, because everything you wear, and you, begin to smell like formaldehyde after a while, and the smell does not come out easily ) and filed into the lab.

I got more and more anxious. The cadavers were on tables, hidden from view behind covering metal cabinets. Our task today was to drain them (whatever THAT meant), wash them, and generally prepare them to be dissected. (At a well equipped school, the cadavers are kept on special tables with formaldehyde tanks below the working surface. When you're done working with the cadaver, you turn a crank and the cadaver gets lowered into the vat of formaldehyde. When you want to work on it again, you turn the crank and raise the cadaver out of the vat and up to the working level. We don't have those, so we will liberate our cadavers from their plastic bags full of embalming fluid, place them in body bags lined with sheets impregnated with rubbing alcohol, and we will wash down the cadavers with bleach.

Then it happened: The first cabinet opened, and there's a naked, dead, butt-white old guy on one of the tables, partially obscured by the plastic bag covering him. He was clearly a guy, since his penis was halfway erect, even after his sojourn in a vat of embalming fluid.

AaaaAAAAAaaaaaaagh!!!

I can't look, and I can't not look.

Then there were nine more of them, as we each opened our designated cabinet. I stared at ours for a full thirty seconds before determining that she was female. (Bald... skinny.....face not feminine... no breasts.... hands tied together covering crotch area.... what I was looking at was disturbingly human, but not human, and it took me a few moments to trace the contours and determine that yes, I was looking at a dead female body.

AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAgh!!!

I kept imagining that if these formerly live people were to find themselves naked, lying on tables in a room full of graduate students, they'd be very embarrassed and upset.

I'd breathe deeply to calm down, but the air was full of formaldehyde. Okay, DeCamp, you can walk out of here and quit school if you really, really want to.

Do you?

Gut check! Do ya want it? Bad enough to do something that wigs you out?

I want it. I was in. Okay, back-- with some remaining trepidation-- to the cadaver.

There were five cadavers and five groups of four people each. We started out with each group prepping their own cadaver, but by the time we got to the last group (mine), everyone was helping out so we could get to the next lab on time. We had to drain the fluids in the plastic body bag, then cut the strings that held their hands and legs together and roll, slide, or otherwise move the cadaver over to our special body bag lined with alcohol-soaked sheets. When we'd moved the cadaver, we washed down the skin with Clorox. (You can imagine the smells in the room.... formaldehyde, bleach, and alcohol. Eeew! But because we have no refrigeration for them, we have to keep them thoroughly disinfected. They're already full of formaldehyde, we just help that a little.)

It sounds like a simple process, but remember, we were dealing with cadaver juice (composed of embalming fluid and fat that had leached out) contained in a body-sized plastic bag. You don't wanna get any of that on you. ;-) The embalming fluid seemed to have done odd things to them; one had its abdominal skin corrugated; others had heels or buttocks flattened. All had their heads shaved, I am not sure why.

We asked where the cadavers had come from. Apparently some people donate their body to science. (Hey, that's me. I am now "Science". I really appreciate that they did that.) Others are wards of the state, and if they have no money and no relatives, this is what happens to them. I hope that is not the case with ours.

Thankfully, we did not get any actual dissecting done. We start on the back next Tuesday.