**old post that i somehow forgot to publish**
Thursdays = Embalming lab
I don't think I can stress that enough :D I really do enjoy getting down and dirty on our cases. There are just sooo many interesting things to learn from them....
One week, our case had sunken eyeballs; actually, they were deflated eyeballs. Apparently, this issue is normally addressed after injecting fluids because they might plump back up. But since we are in a learning environment and technically speaking, we wouldn't be able to see what happened after the case was arterially embalmed because the 3rd semester students are doing that, I got to the opportunity to inject some tissue filler in the eyeball of the case our table was working on! Normally we just insert an eyecap for each eye but this case, the eyes were deflated! It was the coolest thing! It was like a deflated basketball and then you add enough air to fill it back up, except it's an EYEBALL and I'm using a permanent filler that hardens after a few minutes so you can't just remove some if you've injected too much :/ At first I thought I wasn't going to put the needle in fast enough (the eyeball is kinda slippery, oh dontcha know) and then I thought I was going to inject too much of the stuff, but I went slow enough to prevent overfilling. And voila - back to normal....well, not "normal" as the eye was a bit clouded and grey, but normal for us.
Embalming lab has solidified my decision to be in the Funeral Industry. I can hardly wait for my apprenticeship and get to work in the prep room everyday and not just one day of the week!
20 November 2010
Let the bodies hit the floor...
**another old post that i forgot to publish the day that this actually transpired. stupid brain**
I am really excited that I get to go on a body run....
Body run? Well, that is to say, make the trip to the go pick the cases we work on for the day's lab.
Large refrigerators. Bodies everywhere. The smell of advanced decomp - wow. Even with refrigeration, the smell was so overwhelming and unlike anything I've ever experienced before. Granted, these cases (P.A.) have been in there for quite some time; remember that our cases have been deceased anywhere between 2-8 weeks (the norm was closer to 5 or 6 weeks) - unlike working in a mortuary where the cases are relatively "fresh" in being more recently deceased (few hours to a couple days or so). And yes, that makes a big difference!
Because these remains have been deceased for so long, it affects what we do in lab -from washing the body (skin slip) to raising the vessels (fragile arteries, hard to find arteries), choosing the fluids & the results of distribution/lack thereof. We get to be more creative*, perhaps. (*I say that without having any experience in a mortuary).
Anyhow, it was a real eye opener to see so many identified, unclaimed deceased remains all in one place. It was kinda sad that these people didn't have anyone to claim them as their family. Or, for whatever the reason, they've lost contact with their loved ones and now in death, don't have someone to claim them. At least we (students) have the opportunity to show them some respect, even if they are only going to be cremated. Without our cases, we wouldn't be able to learn from them. I'm sure we'd have some other way to facilitate learning how to embalm, but I kinda like that we get the outcasts and unclaimed. It has made me appreciate my family more and I'm sure I'll appreciate my future position as an apprentice working on fresher cases.
Ok, back to studying...
I am really excited that I get to go on a body run....
Body run? Well, that is to say, make the trip to the go pick the cases we work on for the day's lab.
Large refrigerators. Bodies everywhere. The smell of advanced decomp - wow. Even with refrigeration, the smell was so overwhelming and unlike anything I've ever experienced before. Granted, these cases (P.A.) have been in there for quite some time; remember that our cases have been deceased anywhere between 2-8 weeks (the norm was closer to 5 or 6 weeks) - unlike working in a mortuary where the cases are relatively "fresh" in being more recently deceased (few hours to a couple days or so). And yes, that makes a big difference!
Because these remains have been deceased for so long, it affects what we do in lab -from washing the body (skin slip) to raising the vessels (fragile arteries, hard to find arteries), choosing the fluids & the results of distribution/lack thereof. We get to be more creative*, perhaps. (*I say that without having any experience in a mortuary).
Anyhow, it was a real eye opener to see so many identified, unclaimed deceased remains all in one place. It was kinda sad that these people didn't have anyone to claim them as their family. Or, for whatever the reason, they've lost contact with their loved ones and now in death, don't have someone to claim them. At least we (students) have the opportunity to show them some respect, even if they are only going to be cremated. Without our cases, we wouldn't be able to learn from them. I'm sure we'd have some other way to facilitate learning how to embalm, but I kinda like that we get the outcasts and unclaimed. It has made me appreciate my family more and I'm sure I'll appreciate my future position as an apprentice working on fresher cases.
Ok, back to studying...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)