Day 142 / 55 To Go: Lessons From A Cadaver

Posted by: Cris

Tonight was fairly cloudy over Kaneohe Bay but we did get some peak-a-boo views of the moon during the lunar perigee. Tonight is the super test of whether the toad prevention measures are working. I'm headed out right after this to walk the dogs and then let them out to the yard so a thorough perimeter search will be conducted and we'll see how we're doing. I stole this picture from the internet...I wish my moon photography was this good - still working on it.

I was working today so I missed out on these 2 pictures. When I saw them on the camera they totally cracked me up.

One weekend every year I work an anatomy seminar that we put on for the biggest Shiatsu college in Japan. This weekend is the weekend so I'm spending about 8 hours each day (today and tomorrow) in the cadaver lab dissecting a whole cadaver in 2 days. It's pretty fast paced and tiring. I love working this event though because the students are awesome, I get to add to my oh-so-expansive Japanese vocabulary (95% of the words I know in Japanese are anatomy terms), and during lunch, the students all give us Shiatsu massages. Awesome!

This is my sixth year working this event. During the last 6 years, between the courses I teach, the anatomy research I've worked on and these events I work in between, I've maybe worked on 50 different cadavers - 50 people who donated their most precious possession for our benefit. The weight of this donation is not lost on me and I constantly remind my students of this but when you work on cadavers constantly, I'll admit that at times you almost forget it's an actual human and just see "tissue". Periodically something will jolt you back though - usually for me it's those little things that are really "human" like a little old woman who has her fingernails still painted pink. Today was one of those days and it made big impression on me. The average cadaver in our lab was probably 75-80 years old at the time of death and the person either was small and frail and wasted away prior to death due to a disease, cancer, etc. or they are often fairly obese and in poor general shape and had a heart attack or similar.

Today, I randomly ended up at the table with James. James was a painter and was by a HUGE margin the youngest cadaver I've ever worked on - He was 50 years old at the time of death and died of metastatic colorectal cancer that ended up in his lungs. Because he had an active job, he was super lean, and healthy looking and must have died quickly from his cancer because his muscle tissue is very well devleoped and hasn't wasted away from a lengthy illness. His heart looks to be in tremendously healthy condition. I told my group of students that James looks like he was a guy who was very healthy and just had the bad luck of getting cancer that killed him. He is by far the most "human" looking cadaver I've ever worked on and it definitely jolted me back to one of those moments where I realize how temporary we are as humans, made to exist for only a short time in these bodies.

When I am put in this mindset, it becomes a bit conflicting as I continue working because on one hand is the gnawing spectre that I am cutting up an actual person who has family members who are still mourning his passing at this moment (he likely has been dead less than 6 months), but on the other hand, it makes the experience more meaningful as I think about James' choice that allows me to be having this experience at this moment.

Most of the people I know (including my wife) think this part of my job and my love for working on a cadaver as very strange and something they can't imagine enjoying. But I actually love these "jolting" moments the most...like 2 years ago at the memorial service that we put on every year for all of the cadavers from that year. The families of the donors all come and ashes from the deceased are either returned to the family or scattered in the ocean. One of my students came up to me sobbing because she had just met a little old man who asked her if she worked in the anatomy lab. "Yes" she replied. He then went on to explain that his wife to whom he had been married for decades was in there and every single day he would take his dog out for a walk and walk all the way around our building several times just to be near where he knew she was. I tell my students that story at the beginning of every semester and it still chokes me up every time. It is moments like that and like my time today with James that provide a very spiritual component to my work in the anatomy lab; it allows me to understand and appreciate life a little more and reminds me to be thankful for the lessons that these generous people continue to teach me even after their life here is done.