Big Bill

Please don't bury me
Down in that cold cold ground
No, I'd druther have 'em cut me up
And pass me all around
Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don't mind the sighs

Anatomy lab was an experience. Within five minutes, I was holding the back half of someone's vertebral column. That was kind of an initial shock. (For the record, I didn't expect it to fall out entirely. Turns out, they'd sawn through it so we could get to the actual spinal cord.) After that, the shock largely wore off. By the end of 2.5 hours, two of my fingers were numb from the embalming fluid soaking through my glove. I was kind of not okay with that . . . But I may just have to get used to smelling like formaldehyde for the next couple months.

I named our donor "William." (We don't know their actual information, other than age, occupation, and cause of death -- and even that should be treated as PHI.) He's large -- very large. And difficult to roll . . .

As my instructor emphasized yesterday: he may be my first patient, but he's not going to recover. He won't complain, and -- most importantly -- he can't sue. I have to wonder, when these people agreed to donate their bodies to science, if they knew they would be hacked and prodded by clumsy first-year medical students who would accidentally cut through nerves and messily extract fat deposits from their armpits. It's not a very dignified way to spend the afterlife. I don't think it's exactly what John Prine had in mind.

Midterm in two and a half weeks. Final exam on October 1st. It's a bit frightening. Bedroom is still a wreck -- but less of one. Small deficits around our apartment are slowly getting fixed. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Saw Niles yesterday for the last time until who-knows-when. I feel pretty okay about it, really. As I told him, it's likely that we'll both be so busy, we'll barely have time to miss each other. Maybe in passing, but not really miss each other, anyway -- not to the point where your body physically aches.

Speaking of "busy," I'm already behind on studying. Oughta get to it.