An Amazing Vessel

To say that I was a little anxious about the cadaver lab this weekend would have been an understatement. While I was excited about the fact that I even had the opportunity to more closely explore the human body, I was equally filled with angst about how I would handle it. Not really knowing what I would see or how I would react was quite challenging. Walking into the lab just compounded the anxiety. The main lecture area was lined with desks facing a chalkboard inscribed with various terms including sacro iliac ligament, scapula, sacrum and more, but it was what I saw in the back of the room that made me a little uneasy. A white body bag and two shiny, 6-foot long chrome storage containers didn't even begin to tell the story about what we were going to be discovering over the next few hours.


The lab director was amazing. He spent the first 45 minutes making us feel comfortable and talking to us about the amazing people who take the time to sign up to be body donors. They allow students like us to experience the human body first hand so we can better comprehend all of its complexities in order to help others. We were given the opportunity to observe 3 cadavers, whom out of respect for the person, the lab director gave names and not numbers.


Donning white lab coats and gloves, we were given the opportunity to experience, up close and personal, the amazing vessel in which we abide. I held a uterus, many bones, and a human brain. I got to feel a bundle of spinal cords, hold kidneys, and see how a pace maker is attached. I learned how you can determine whether someone has given birth (by the shape of the opening in the floor of the uterus), how the gaps in the brain's cavity tell the story of Alzheimer's, and how great yoga is (just like weight lifting) for building bone density.


The human body is just so amazing. I'll never look at it quite the same way again, and any anxiety I had at the beginning of class was replaced with true appreciation for this amazing vessel that we have been given.