Leaving people is often hard. It suprised me that leaving a dead person is, in a way, hard too. After each round of tests in anatomy (one lecture exam and one lab exam based on the cadavers and identifying muscles, nerves, arteries, etc), one's lab group must rotate from its current cadaver to another cadaver. A stranger. Someone with a different body, a different feel, and a different story.
Our first cadaver was a 92 year old man who was quite healthy. He died in 2005 because of a random hemorrhage, or bleeding, into his brain and spinal cord.
His muscles rivaled those of a 20 year old. He had taken great
care of himself in life and could easily have lived another 8 years
if not for the fluke incident of cerebral hemorrhaging.
Our Grandpappy Netter (named after the late artist and physician Frank Netter who authored our anatomy atlas) was good to us too: when
a structure on his body was pinned with a miniature flag like those on your steak signifying medium rare or well done, the structure was easily identified as the ligamentum flavum. Believe it or not, that was probably the easiest question on the lab test.
So, now we have moved to the table on our left in the downstairs dungeon that is the anatomy lab. We might as well have moved across the state, as this new woman is completely different. She was in her late 80s, and she died of myeloma.
Her body is neither strong nor powerful. Hers is a weak body that tells of the long struggle she must have had with this bone-stealing cancer.
We dissected her chest wall, snipping the ribs along the way, and reflecting the chest
back almost like removing a shining knight's armored chest plate.
Inside rested her two lungs, finally at peace from 87 years of everyday breathing.
The dissection also called for us to remove those lungs. At this point, the professor who rotates around the lab visiting tables happened to stop at our body. He leaned in, took out his personal scalpel, and carefully made an incision where her lung was attached to the trachea.
"Watch very closely," he said. As he cut, bubbles began to rise out from the inside bronchiole tubes of her lung.
"Those air bubbles are from the last breath she ever took"
Our anatomy group stood there in silent awe for a moment, trying to take it all in; the fugaciousness of life.
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4 comments:
Reading about the air bubbles from her last breath gave me goosebumps. Thanks for taking a break from your rigorous studying to share a little about your time in the dungeon of the anatomy lab.
Before we started college, I had wanted to be a nursing major and was taking A&P at Sparkman. We actually got a chance to go to UAB and see a cadaver and different parts of the human body and there were three instances where I was just amazed at what I was actually holding in my hands. The first was a human head that had been sliced in half so that you could open it like a book and see the two halves of the brain perfectly as they are situated in the skull, the second was a uterus with the fallopian tubes and ovaries still attached and the third and most powerful was a heart. Something about know that at one time this lifeless mass that was in my hands once kept a person alive beating every few seconds just like mine was just amazing and enough to make you stop and realize what wonderful things these bodies of ours are and so much more. And I know that as you are going through these courses, not only are you experiencing things like this but so much more and I want to thank you for taking the time to share these with us. Good luck with all your studying!!
It gave me goosebumps too! Thanks for sharing, I look forward to reading about your experiences!
Wowsers. Somewhat disturbing, somewhat awesome, that story was a bit crazy. Thanks for the stories. You are an amazing writer and those little links you toss in are very helpful. :] It is amazing how much you can remember from just a few weeks. I know how much you have been studying and working. You are doing a great job and I know you will continue to do so. I love you boy. You can do it!
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