» Have you ever seen a dead body?

Probably more than the average serial killer
So, this long term lurker has been seduced out of lurkerage for this weeks QOTW, because I have indeed seen dead bodies. Many of them. I inexpertly slice them up on a weekly basis.

For the record, let me first say that the majority of stories about med students and dissection cadavers are false, or at least very very outdated.
No student in their right mind is going to remove any bit of human tissue from the lab for the purpose of amusing japery, simply because if you get caught, you don't just get kicked out of med school, you also get prosecuted under the EU Human Tissue Thingummy. Presumably you then go to jail and get arseraped by a large man called Bazzer.

For those of you who have never known the wrong and strange pleasure of detatching connective tissue from the underside of a rib cage using one's fingers (it makes a slight tearing sound) or who have never smelt formalin at nine in the morning while still slightly drunk from the night before, I present: The Wisdom of The Dissection Room

1- You look like food.
Muscles, slightly inexpertly cut away, look like bits of tuna. The inside of the chest cavity smells oddly of lamb, possibly lamb with a formaldehyde sauce. There are entire societies of med students, usually rugby players, who are based chiefly upon the concept that eating a steak after dissection is manly and hard. At least we're not as bad as vet students. When they have fresh (non-embalmed) dissections of cows and the like, apparently loads of them nick off with the meat. One way of acquiring supper, I suppose.

2. Formalin (the main embalming fluid) does not smell good. It does not smell good in the dissecting room. It does not smell good on the crowded tube home. It does not smell good after you've showered for half an hour and used an entire bottle of Satsuma Bodywash in a vain attempt to rid yourself of the odour before your first date with an extremely hot anthropology second year, who will sniff the air at intervals throughout the evening with a puzzled and slightly revolted look.

3. Lungs can explode.
When removing the top of the rib cage, if it really isn't coming off, there's a possibility that your cadaver might be a wee bit abnormal. Giving it "a good yank" is not an approved dissection technique and may result in fragments of the severely adhesioned lung separating abruptly from the main section and landing in your hair.

4. Everything inside you looks exactly like every thing else.
Not quite, but nearly. If it's yellow and slightly hard it's adipose tissue (fat). If it's reddish pink and striated it's probably muscle. If it's red and squishy, it could be anything. If it's red and stringy, it's definitly a vein or a nerve. Or an arteriole. Or a ligament. Or just a strand of muscle. Something like that.

5. Cutting up dead people is really boring.
Yeah, it really is. You'd think it would feel all taboo and forbidden, especially with the catholic church forbidding it for like a bajillion years, but in fact it's kind of dull. It turns out that people are in fact more interesting alive, even old people.

6. If you accidently cut off the umbilicus (belly button) of your cadavar, and you really weren't meant to, and it needs to be attatched so you can use it to reference the location of everything else you see.... just live with the fact that you screwed up. DO NOT TRY TO REATTATCH SAID UMBILICUS WITH GLUE. This is important. You will only make everything worse.

God, I wish someone had told me that before I started med school.
(Thu 28th Feb 2008, 19:05, More)

» Blood

So a few years back...
... I went what the diplomatic among us might call a little bit peculiar. I got quite depressed, and then quite paranoid, and then I started to hallucinate more or less constantly. I was under the care of a couple of doctors at this point, but I wasn't taking the medication. I ground it up and dissolved it in water to see if it would kill a pot plant. I'm not totally sure about the reasoning behind that part.

I kept on with uni and didn't really talk about the fact that I was batshit crazy. I could have long conversations with my family while dead people laughed and laughed, and I never mentioned it. I felt like the only thing worse than living this would be telling anyone about it.

Where this story becomes relevant was a few months after my first psychotic break. I woke up one morning and the depression was utterly gone. I had the energy and will to get out of bed, which was a change. I also knew that god was giving me a message, and I had tasks to complete. These were somewhat arbitrary tasks, like alphabetising my cds and and hoovering the flat, but the last thing on the list was killing myself.

I was totally okay with the whole thing. In fact I was utterly euphoric the whole morning. I can remember just about everything up to the point when I had to get down to business, as it were. And then there's a gap. The fixture that I was hanging myself from came off, and I sort of woke up on the floor, clicking back on into awareness.

And good lord, the whole place was covered in blood. The bedsheets, my clothes, my face and hair. There was blood on the walls and floor and ceiling. The desk was covered in the scalpels that I had presumably been plunging into my arms in a carefree manner.
It took a few minutes before I realised the blood was actually coming from me, and that was because I made the mistake of looking in the mirror. If you've never seen your own face with blood smeared all over it, allow me to recommend against it. It was disturbing, to say the least, but it woke me up enough to do an inventory of myself to find the damage.

My happy mood had vanished into the ether, and my sanish self was back in command. Mostly I just felt exceedingly embarrassed, but there was a kind of wonder there- like, holy fuck, how did I get blood on the ceiling?
Anyway, I wrapped towels around my arms and walked into casualty, which was just over the road. They stitched me up, and did all kinds of x-rays and ct scans and things.

I ended up being stuck in a psych ward for some time, under rather intense supervision. It was about a year before the hallucinations stopped, but I eventually reached a place where I was willing to live. I still have the odd bad day when the voices show up, and I still see things that other people don't, but I'm back at uni and I'm fitting my life back together. I'm very lucky in that there's only a little nerve damage to my left arm, and I have full mobility in both hands.

Moral of the story: If you or someone you care about has a mental illness- don't pretend it isn't happening. It is, and it will get worse before it gets better. Also, if you leave blood to set on carpet, it will never really come out. But you'll have an interesting story if people ask about the stains.
(Thu 7th Aug 2008, 23:00, More)

» When were you last really scared?

So, me and some friends pulling a movie all-nighter on the couch...
We'd been watching the Hannibal movies and drinking. Everything was fine, we were laughing and fff-fff-fff-ing at each other. And then I realised that Hannibal was standing behind the curtain and planning to eat my brain.
Naturally I took immediate retaliatory action, in this case hiding beneath the duvet so that no part of my body save my nose was exposed. Due to the fact that this was a small and crowded couch, some sacrifices for the greater good were necessary. I was very sad for those of my mates who were now seated on the floor and uncovered by the duvet, as this meant an inevitable and disgusting demise at the hands of Anthony Hopkins. But death comes to us all and there is no use repining.

All was well until I needed to use the bathroom. Disaster! I armed myself with a large empty bottle of Caribbean Twist and left the safety of the couch.
My business completed, I crept back through the kitchen. Suddenly a crack rang out. A door slamming open. A gunshot. I didn't know and wasn't going to wait around to find out*.
Terrified but with lightning reflexes, I spun round and brained Lector with the bottle.

Except by some freak mischance, it wasn't Hannibal Lector at all, and was actually my best friend. Yeah, that kind of put a damper on the evening, taking her to A&E and all.**

* It was actually the lid of the toilet falling down. A mistake anyone could have made.

** On the plus side, I am happy to report that no one was eaten or dismembered. That should count for something.
(Fri 23rd Feb 2007, 12:24, More)

» Phobias

Hedge trimmers
The backstory is that a few years ago I was cordially invited to spend some time in a quiet place at the expense of the NHS. It was one of those invitations you can't really decline.

Anyway, I was discharged a few weeks later and toddled off to live with my mum for a while, on account of needing to be watched for Signs of The Crazy. Most of the time I was just wandering around like a zombie and occasionally refusing to eat or speak. Harmless stuff for the most part. But then there were the other bits.

The other bits when I was convinced that the furniture was watching me, that the food in the supermarket was all poisoned. That small boys passing by on those bloody skate-shoes were actually flying, due to being inhabited by demons. The times when dead people came and talked to me. Yeah, that was fun.

I hasten to add that eighteen months and a barrelful of antipsychotics later, I am a reasonably happy and productive member of society. I no longer hear voices, see things, or wish to top myself. Apart from a large and eclectic medical history, the only real remnant is a lingering phobia. Of hedge trimmers.

Even typing it makes me feel ill. Now, as a rational human being, I am aware that some might consider this an unreasonable fear. They're just large gardening shears, inanimate objects after all. What could possibly be frightening about that?

And to those people I respectfully say... fuck you. Don't come crying to me when the evil spirit that inhabits the hedge trimmers infects your loved ones.

They'll pick them up, maybe just to look at them, put them on the other shelf in the shed, maybe prune back the leylandii... and that's it. That isn't your dad anymore. It's hedge clippers given control of a human body. There's nothing there in his eyes anymore, just the soulless reflection of those shiny metal blades. He'll start opening and closing the shears, almost aimlessly, without any real direction, but still somehow closing in on you. You'll laugh nervously and jokingly wave him off.
"Watch out, Dad," you'll say, pretending it's funny even though somehow it's really not. "You could have someone's eye out."
But he won't answer, and deep down you didn't expect him to, because you know your dad, you love your dad, and you somehow know that the thing behind those fucking shears isn't him. No, Dad's gone, dead, worse than dead, and the thing that has him is coming closer, jerkily stepping towards you with the shears swinging open and closed, the metal sliding sound speeding up. And you look around for a way out, a weapon, anything, but not openly, no, you have to be casual, not let on that you suspect because if it sees you know it'll be on before you can even scream.

So, pick up the spade and beat your father to death with it, or resign yourself to a bloody and painful death followed by a speedy induction into the undead hedgetrimmer army. There's no real winning solution here.

Fucking hedge trimmers.
(Thu 10th Apr 2008, 23:44, More)

» Obscure Memorabilia

my dad
used to go round and get stoned at 57 mt. pleasant street, mentioned in a crowded house song. last time we went back to new zealand, he insisted on going to see it. and then he took some broken glass off the street outside. he still has it in a little box.
the freak.
(Sat 6th Nov 2004, 1:09, More)