August 21, 2007

• My dream of being a Coroner has been shot to shit

  Tuesdays are LAB days. A hefty chunk of my schedule on these days
  encompasses four hours of Chemistry II lab with an eccentric lab
  instructor who slightly reminds me of my Chem teacher from high school.
  More than likely, this teacher didn't get a DUI when driving to
  Whataburger.

  Although Chemistry with Dortch 2.0 dominates much of my lab time, there
  is still much to be said about Human [Anatomy &] Dissection. I saw
  my first three cadavers today. THREE. That's a lot of dead for a person
  to see, unless you're a murderer, cop, investigator, doctor, nurse,
  coroner, priest, unlucky person who stumbles on dead bodies, George
  Romero, those kids from Stand By Me, etc...

  Have you ever seen a dead person before? It's not as fun as it sounds.
  In fact, it made my skin crawl seeing three lifeless bodies covered by
  a thin layer of clear plastic. That slip cover adds an interesting
  effect to the appearance of a corpse. It makes it look unreal, like
  it's horror movie prop in storage. You feel that--although it is
  indefinitely room temperature, motionless, and laden with a stench of
  cabbage and vinegar--at any second life will try to reclaim the body
  and its soul will escape from the underworld as its physical remains
  escape from the bag.

  Then, the professor told us that these donated cadavers were people who
  died in assisted living and/or retirement homes, and either no family
  [wanted to] claim the remains or no one could afford for a proper
  burial.

  Yeah. Kind of puts a bitter taste in your mouth.

  So does the smell of formaldehyde.

  • 6:16 pm
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