post-life

Our fourth anatomy lab today. Anterior thigh and and crus. 90 minutes in and I was super woozy - I had to leave for a few minutes. Working at the upper thigh, streams of formalin and what is disgustingly named "body juice" poured out from my person. Layers of globulous adipose tissue clung to the fascia and muscles I clumsily and frustratedly tried to separate. Muscles zig-zagged over and under each other; arteries nerves and veins obstructed each place I attempted to make incisions - is it possible to be angry at a cadaver?

I am in a love-hate relationship with anatomy lab. In most aspects, it is such a holy place. We are allowed vision into a world most will never see (or want to see). I am transfixed by the interplay of form and function; the meticulous organization of each muscle, nerve, artery, vein in the human person. It is at once extremely detailed and complicated with the sheer amount of structures, while simultaneously elegant and simple as almost any function can be guessed by examining joints and attachments.

In the beginning of our course, we were given a letter in our course pack from the person who donated their body for our learning. In it, the woman described her full knowledge of the gift she was giving to us, and her great hope that her gift would benefit us, so that we could benefit others. At the close of her letter, she told us that each day since she made the decision to donate her body, she had prayed for us.

Reading that last line, I started to cry.

Much like I started to cry just several moments before. Tied into working with my very-committed and generous cadaver, I am reminded in a grossly-awesome way of the knowledge that all life is a gift; one that we are loaned temporarily. No function that we have is ours to keep; and for each person, a real and precise time will come when the loans must be returned. I am a doctor to heal people, but I am thinking more and more about how I will mostly be a doctor to accompany people as they face the loss of function, themselves, and their lives.

I do not want to make my career path out as being the grim reaper; in fact, I am certain that most of what I do in the day to day will be simple nuts-and bolts medicine and healing. But life, even a life well lived and long lived, is a painful thing to part with (at least, that is the only way I can view it now).

These entries are incomplete thoughts, but I have to return to my Netter's.