Today was the cadaver day.
Feb. 3rd, 2004 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninevirtuesToday 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.
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.
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Re:
Date: 2004-02-05 02:39 pm (UTC)My cadaver experience was typically with bodies that were... not as fresh. One of the things they don't tell you in advance is how much dehydrated muscle tissue looks like... meat. I know, I know, meat is muscle, dummy. but still, there's a difference between knowing it and being assaulted with the resemblence on a very visceral level.
Beef jerky. Barbeque pork shoulder. Oooofff.