Friday, 17 September 1999

So, this is the much anticipated day - our very first cadavar! (Cadavar = dead body).

We have been so overwhelmed with tests, assignments and work that we had almost forgotten that today would be a 'special' day, a milestone of sorts. It was only during one of our early morning lectures that I realised that wow... in a few hours', we'll be seeing our first dead body up close!

It was double period for Anatomy Practical and the first period was spent discussing muscles and pinpointing them on the anatomy models. I had forced myself to revise a little prior to class the night before and on the bus and train on the way to school and had spent the free period before class coloring the anatomical parts to help me remember so I was sittin' there, kinda proud, sorta smug, that I could name most of the muscles of the upper limb. :) hehehe! I like to give myself little pats on the back for every little achievement to keep my morale up. :)

Very soon, it was time for us to move to the Cadavar Room! Whooo!! Some of my classmates were apprehensive, others were silently preparing themselves. The long walk along the corridor seemed longer than usual, all of us taking tentative steps. I felt kinda 'numb', not really thinking anything, trying hard to suppress any fear and such... it was a weird feeling. But all the while, I maintained a calm, 'kewl' exterior. My stomach was a little quivery because I didn't really know what to expect.

Some classmates hung around the door, giggling nervously, scared to enter. I made a fuss-free entrance, took a deep breath and told myself to be 'professional' about it.

Funny... the room didn't smell as bad as I imagined it would. In fact, there wasn't any particularly distinctive smell at all.

Into the room, turn to the right and voila! the dissected cadavars lying on the huge metal trolleys. :P They looked queer... they don't really look human. I guess they have been preserved so long that their colour is a little different from normal human flesh. The Doctor said these specimens were about 5 years old. There were about 5 arms on the trolley in front of him and I noted with surprise that they were all wet and one of them looked 'stale' and soggy and it appeared as if it had decomposed somewhat, maybe? Or perhaps, it had been frozen and defrosted once too many times?

I told myself to be objective, to focus on the anatomy and forget how human they all look. Forget, forget, concentrate...

I wondered who these folks were. One looked like it belonged to an old Chinese woman. Another looked like an Indian man's and another like a Chinese man's. Look at their fingernails... it's all so... human, so ... real... Concentrate...

The doctor pointed out the various muscles and nerves in the arms and turned them about expertly with two pairs of tweezers. I looked at his gloved hand and hope that there are no breaks in them. Imagine the glove ripping apart for some strange reason and coming into contact with those arms! Concentrate...

Uh-oh. I stood so close to him and the trolley, I started to catch a whiff of ... cadavar smell. I daren't start analyzing how they smell like in case I got nauseous thinking about it. It smelled kinda sweetish, cloying sweetish and yet, there was a smell of staleness. I started to feel sick smelling the smell so I told myself, stop smelling! And I didn't think about how it smelled like anymore. I daren't. Anyway, it's hard to describe that smell.

The specimens were dissected very nicely. The skin was removed in certain parts and the muscles dissected in layers so with each layer you peeled back, you could see the underlying layer. Interesting. Just like how the textbook diagrams looked like. Good. Think of the facts, look for similarities between the diagram and the real thing, I guess that was how I was able to stand next to the tray and not feel sick. I noticed some classmates standing at a distance and covering their mouths with their hands.

If you think of it in a way, these look just like the pig and cow 'carcasses' they chop up for sale in the markets. :P Concentrate... Distance yourself from thinking of them as human parts... Stop taking deep breaths, my nose is starting to send weird signals to my stomach and I'm starting to feel a wee bit nauseous. Concentrate...

The towel is removed from another specimen on another trolley to reveal the posterior trunk. Once again, the layers were neatly dissected. On to the next surprise - the front view of the trunk. This came from a man who died from lung cancer due to smoking. See the black spots all over the lungs. Yeah, it's from smoking all right. Yucks! The entire lungs were black! Yucks! They should let all smokers take a look!

Yet another specimen, the trunk again. This time, the abdomen was neatly cut into layers to reveal the underlying muscles. Look here, the Rectus Abdominus, see there, the Exterior Abdominus Obliques, and see the Pectoralis Major up there? Ooo! Aaah!

What's under those towels just beside this specimen? Peekaboo! Yikes! Brains!! The doc says, ok, this is not for first year students, covers it up and announces that we can return to our Anatomy Lab.

Hmm... it was an ok experience. I didn't faint, didn't throw up, didn't cower. Pretty proud of myself, actually. :) I guess it was easy because we didn't get to see the entire body but dissected sections. If I saw the whole body complete with the head, that would be a different thing! Seeing the head would be pretty haunting. You would be able to see the expression, you'd start to think of them as a 'human', not that these specimens weren't human but... gee, how do I express it? It would be harder to detach yourself if you were to see the face and the entire body. Lying there in pieces, the specimens were not whole, there was something unreal about them, something not quite human, if you will. I could think of them as, oh, here an arm, oh there's a trunk. I didn't have to think, oh, here's a lady who just died. I'd start wondering about her death, her family, etc etc. I would start to get disturbed. Yet at the same time, I refrained from giggling and such because in a way, I respect the cadavars. Am I making sense?

The doc told us that these are unclaimed bodies from the hospitals and we get the cadavars after the medical students have dissected them. The parts are carefully labelled and five to six years later, depending on their condition, the various parts are gathered together and a burial conducted out of respect for the deceased. I'm glad that they are treated respectfully. They deserve the respect, especially since they are making such a big contribution to the medical field.

Immediately after was our lunch period. Did I eat my lunch. Yup! My friends too, though I heard there were one or two classmates who couldn't stomach food after that. I do admit that towards the end of my lunch, I looked at the Szechuan Diced Chicken with Dried Chilli on my plate and realised, oh yucks... the dark-stained chicken flesh looked the exact colour as those preserved cadavars!!! I had to discipline myself and tell myself to stop that thought, think about my classmates around me who are enjoying their lunch, don't freak out, and swallow the last few bits. It was kinda hard because I kept thinking of the cadavars but one, two, GULP! OK, I finished lunch! :)

Met my mom for dinner after school and told her about my first cadavar viewing and she said, "Wow! You're a brave girl. You aren't even scared and you still have a healthy appetite!" hehehehe! Well mom, takes more than cadavars to keep me off food! ;)

One milestone passed! Overall, the cadavar experience was educational, an eye-opener and not at all disgusting.

It sure isn't easy training to be a Registered Nurse!

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