Bloody Valentine's
OK, since I wrote just a few days ago, this one should be short. But, since I just had the best Valentine's day ever, I had to share. Pretty much none of this e-mail is safe for those who are sensitive. Skip to last paragraph if you need to (but then the e-mail is rather boring). So here goes:
Today, I was up to my elbows in the chest cavity - well, maybe just mid-forearms. I had to cut off the rib cage with an electric autopsy saw, remove the front part of my cadaver's chest and cut out both lungs. It is amazing how the chest cavity just pops off like the hood of a car. Since neither of the other girls wanted to have this duty, I zealously took it on… I wondered if there was something wrong with my enthusiasm but I was assured by my professors that I was perfectly normal - among a certain crowd. ;-) So a few things I learned today:
Even though an electric saw (think of an electric pizza cutter with a serrated blade) can cut through bone like butter, it cannot cut through flesh and muscle.
That bone, when getting cut, smells like Fritos.
The lungs are HUGE. Find your clavicle - go ahead - you have the uppermost part of your lung under that! Yes, they come up into the neck shoulder region.
Now a word from the stop smoking campaign. The lungs of a smoker are as dense as bricks and just as heavy. Parts of them just die and atrophy in the body and leave black marks on the surrounding cavity. They are black and heavy, the feel nothing like the healthy tissue (kind of spongy) of the other cadavers. And the tumors are astounding. They exist inside and outside the lungs. They grow on the muscle that your lungs sit on - they spread everywhere. It wasn't the black lungs that got me, it was the accompanying tumors that couldn't get over. Where flesh should have been smooth it was like someone put a layer of large rocks under the muscle in the entire chest cavity. I can't even begin to describe this in words that don’t sound cliché. But seeing it puts a whole new perspective on things.
Oh, and the most ironic and mildly sick part of my dissection today (and I find most humorous since it was Valentine's day): I had to remove all the skin off the abdominal region down into the "inguinal" region. This is where the male plumbing comes through abdominal muscles to enter the... Um… family jewel chest. Yeah - the place where a hernia is likely to happen in little boys. I actually saw a female with a hernia today in that same region - that is rare. So, I had my face and fingers in my cadaver's um… family jewel chest today. Joy! We do have to dissect everything and they mean everything. We don’t get embarrassed about it in front of the other students (last week we had to cut a female breast in half) , but relaying it to you all makes me remember that it is not normal… but all joking aside, it is very fascinating how this area develops. Did you know that the testes, during development are actually located in the lower back?
And as for my latest exam: pretty much the entire class failed the physiology exam we had on Monday - class average was a 65 (and nothing below a 70 is passing). I got a 70. Mild anxiety attack there but not surprised. There are 2 more exams for this class - hopefully it will get better. I studied at least 30 hours for that exam. Oy vey.
Ok, Happy Valentine's Day and I hope you all enjoyed the update!!
Jess
Today, I was up to my elbows in the chest cavity - well, maybe just mid-forearms. I had to cut off the rib cage with an electric autopsy saw, remove the front part of my cadaver's chest and cut out both lungs. It is amazing how the chest cavity just pops off like the hood of a car. Since neither of the other girls wanted to have this duty, I zealously took it on… I wondered if there was something wrong with my enthusiasm but I was assured by my professors that I was perfectly normal - among a certain crowd. ;-) So a few things I learned today:
Even though an electric saw (think of an electric pizza cutter with a serrated blade) can cut through bone like butter, it cannot cut through flesh and muscle.
That bone, when getting cut, smells like Fritos.
The lungs are HUGE. Find your clavicle - go ahead - you have the uppermost part of your lung under that! Yes, they come up into the neck shoulder region.
Now a word from the stop smoking campaign. The lungs of a smoker are as dense as bricks and just as heavy. Parts of them just die and atrophy in the body and leave black marks on the surrounding cavity. They are black and heavy, the feel nothing like the healthy tissue (kind of spongy) of the other cadavers. And the tumors are astounding. They exist inside and outside the lungs. They grow on the muscle that your lungs sit on - they spread everywhere. It wasn't the black lungs that got me, it was the accompanying tumors that couldn't get over. Where flesh should have been smooth it was like someone put a layer of large rocks under the muscle in the entire chest cavity. I can't even begin to describe this in words that don’t sound cliché. But seeing it puts a whole new perspective on things.
Oh, and the most ironic and mildly sick part of my dissection today (and I find most humorous since it was Valentine's day): I had to remove all the skin off the abdominal region down into the "inguinal" region. This is where the male plumbing comes through abdominal muscles to enter the... Um… family jewel chest. Yeah - the place where a hernia is likely to happen in little boys. I actually saw a female with a hernia today in that same region - that is rare. So, I had my face and fingers in my cadaver's um… family jewel chest today. Joy! We do have to dissect everything and they mean everything. We don’t get embarrassed about it in front of the other students (last week we had to cut a female breast in half) , but relaying it to you all makes me remember that it is not normal… but all joking aside, it is very fascinating how this area develops. Did you know that the testes, during development are actually located in the lower back?
And as for my latest exam: pretty much the entire class failed the physiology exam we had on Monday - class average was a 65 (and nothing below a 70 is passing). I got a 70. Mild anxiety attack there but not surprised. There are 2 more exams for this class - hopefully it will get better. I studied at least 30 hours for that exam. Oy vey.
Ok, Happy Valentine's Day and I hope you all enjoyed the update!!
Jess
posted by TENN at 11:10 AM
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