And the penultimate cadaver posting
Jul. 9th, 2004 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninevirtuesWe got to see the death certificates for our cadavers today.
I probably ought not to mention the name of our cadaver, but I can say that she was an 87-year-old former legal secretary from South Carolina. She died of pneumonia. She donated her body. (in some states, wards of the state get donated to labs like ours after death.)
Random thoughts, because I'm still trying to make sense of it:
1) So a former legal secretary from South Carolina, who I never met, taught me more about anatomy and the effects of aging than any textbook ever could... even though she never actually met me.
2) I saw and met that person, and I know her body, at a level she never got to see. (She never saw her own heart, her own sciatic nerve, her diaphragm, uterus, or great saphenous vein, and it's probably very good that she did not. I won't ever see mine either (at least I sincerely hope not) but now I can picture them.
3) If you believe, as I do, that life experiences and emotions are stored in the body as areas of tightness, restriction, and pain... and that the way we take care of ourselves and feel about ourselves is mirrored in the way we look, and act, and stand, and walk, and what we eat.... then I've had the opportunity to see the accumulated choices of an entire life, like a book available to read once you learn its language. I'm having a little trouble reconciling that wealth of information with the bare details: Legal secretary, age 87, South Carolina.
The bottom line: This woman donated her body to science hoping to do some good. She did. She may never know how many people she helped.
The ultimate cadaver posting (that would be the last one) will probably be all about the final practical, which will be comprehensive over both modules.
I probably ought not to mention the name of our cadaver, but I can say that she was an 87-year-old former legal secretary from South Carolina. She died of pneumonia. She donated her body. (in some states, wards of the state get donated to labs like ours after death.)
Random thoughts, because I'm still trying to make sense of it:
1) So a former legal secretary from South Carolina, who I never met, taught me more about anatomy and the effects of aging than any textbook ever could... even though she never actually met me.
2) I saw and met that person, and I know her body, at a level she never got to see. (She never saw her own heart, her own sciatic nerve, her diaphragm, uterus, or great saphenous vein, and it's probably very good that she did not. I won't ever see mine either (at least I sincerely hope not) but now I can picture them.
3) If you believe, as I do, that life experiences and emotions are stored in the body as areas of tightness, restriction, and pain... and that the way we take care of ourselves and feel about ourselves is mirrored in the way we look, and act, and stand, and walk, and what we eat.... then I've had the opportunity to see the accumulated choices of an entire life, like a book available to read once you learn its language. I'm having a little trouble reconciling that wealth of information with the bare details: Legal secretary, age 87, South Carolina.
The bottom line: This woman donated her body to science hoping to do some good. She did. She may never know how many people she helped.
The ultimate cadaver posting (that would be the last one) will probably be all about the final practical, which will be comprehensive over both modules.
