Autopsy

I have literally failed at life today, in every possible way.

For starters, I saw an autopsy today as part of a requirement for my Pathology class. It. Was awful. Quite assuredly the worse thing I have ever experienced at any time during my dealings with all things medical. Including TV, drunk driving don't-end-up-like-these-mangled-scraps-of-humanity promotional videos, and odd bits of horror movies I've been unfortunate enough to stumble across.

It got to me. The smell was the first thing, though not the worst. It's fleshy and raw and meaty, I suppose, and the scent of blood just tastes like iron and rust in your mouth. I still can't get the taste out.  The most disturbing thing about the smell of fresh death was that it was so horribly familiar. I've never been around anything like this--I've never even been hunting, been to slaughter houses, nothing--and yet I knew that smell. I don't know why, but I hated it.

I walked into the building sick already. I'm one of the types who don't eat for days when PMS hits, because the smell, thought, or mention of food makes me feel nauseated. And so I literally whimpered when I woke up this morning and realized that, yes, this was one of those days. They tell you to eat before you come in--well. That's funny. And so that blast of cold air with death in it hit me in the face, and I saw all these bodies in various stages of butchery almost immediately, and it took everything I had not to black out right then and there. I think I pulled it off pretty well, all things considered.

Autopsies are obscene. They cut her open with kitchen knives and used massive garden shears on her ribcage, and then they just started pulling things out, lungs and vessels, her liver, her heart. God. I think this really got to me more than I realized--I'm sitting here crying because I was so horrified and all I wanted to do was leave, but I couldn't. It's required. Why the hell they require something like that is beyond me. And it's gross, and I can't even apologize about it, because it's been trapped inside my head all day, and I want it out.

They weren't like cadavers, you know. Those don't look like people anymore. These do. Just stupid people with tattoos and scars and nail polish. So you have to desperately remind yourself that they aren't people anymore. Just lumps of meat, no more than a cat or dog lying dead in the gutter.

I don't think anybody realizes what autopsies actually look like. They're not that nice neat metal table with the body all pristine and sewed up, or laid open all clean like those idiotic TV shows. There's blood and fluid everywhere, spattered on masks and dripping on the floor, and pieces of stuff, and did you know that people don't die with their eyes closed? Her eyes were blue. At least they were until the coroner's assistant pulled her face off and folded it under her neck, ripped her scalp off her skull and took her brain. God. I couldn't watch that part. The smell of bone being sawed just added to the whole experience, if you know what I mean. But you don't. Of course you don't.

There was a massive fat black lady next to us. I don't know why she died--perhaps gunshot wounds. I didn't look very closely. When they rolled her over, all her fat moved and it looked like she would sit up at any moment. The coroners were making rude jokes about her. Maybe that's their way of dealing with what they do. I suppose you get used to it after a while, but it made me sick.

Towards the end, the people working on the body lifted it up to put a block under the back. They'd cut everything apart that was holding her together in front, and her shoulders flopped back to form a 90 degree angle where one normally doesn't exist. That was the worst moment, for me. People don't do that. They don't move like that unless they're so, so broken. I had to look at something else, hard like trying to memorize Braille, hard to remind myself that I could still breathe.

You keep thinking it will get better. That the worst moment had to be first walking in and seeing a person flayed open like a fish, thin wrist hanging off the table and dripping blood so slowly. And then you think, no, the worst moment must be watching one side of her face cave in because they just went through her neck to her throat, under her skin, and ripped something out--I didn't look closely enough to tell what. Surely that must be the worst moment, and it will be over soon. But then you realize the worst moment is when you accidentally look closely at the bag they've used to cover her brainless head, and realize it is actually semi-transparent, and that her twisted used-to-be-a-face is staring back but it's all wrong because they didn't pull it tight enough over her skull to fit the place it used to be; and then you finally get it, that there will always be a worst moment coming up until you get to walk out the door, so just expect it and look away when it comes.

I came home and scrubbed my hair twice. After that, I did almost nothing. The entire afternoon. Some of it was the I'm in physical pain, and that never helps concentration, but after this little exercise with words I'm starting to believe it was simply my lack of willingness to think about this morning. All afternoon it's felt like my mind has been shut down, just stopped, like I was trapped in honey or amber. And so I lost myself in stories, in being around people, in not thinking. It's been so discouraging and I was beating myself up pretty badly for my appalling lack of motivation--but it sort of makes sense now, for the first time.  I've written about it, cried fairly hard, and for the first time in hours I feel like things are starting to move again--and that I might be able to sleep (and I'm hungry now). Still a bit bewildered by it. Still trying to process. I'm not done yet, either. I can feel it. My mind is still stumbling around it. But I think this was my problem today. Maybe my mind just shut down for a bit to protect itself.

I know a girl I met in a lunch line started crying when she tried to tell me how her autopsy experience went, so this isn't completely nuts. Steph told me they gave her a kid, and she didn't know if she could have gone through with it--but they switched her so she didn't have to watch. I don't know. I don't know why I had to experience that. Most people probably don't have my reaction, but still. At this point I can't see anything redeeming about watching a body being torn down piece by piece.

I'm so tired now. I couldn't sleep before--you might notice by the time stamp that it's almost midnight, and I generally turn into a pumpkin at about ten. As therapy, this has worked pretty well. But man. I can still smell it. I hate that. I just want to sleep.