Practically speaking...

The last two practicals were craniology and the respiratory system.

Craniology, I must admit, was pretty cool [and no, the temperature in the lab had nothing to do with it]. I’m not sure how they preserve it, but those skulls are rock hard… ish. I mean, if you were to drop it [and I’m not saying I did], it would probably break. The sutures were incredible though. You have this idea of what it looks like in your head [pun intendedJ], but to see the real thing in front of you… Man, the way the tiny pieces knit together… It looks as though the skull was always one large bone, and then someone cut through it; it all fits that perfectly together. And if you, in your perverse manner, pulled on the two parts had enough, it would move apart. I’m being totally seriously right now… although you’d have to apply a great amount of pressure.

Our specimen had a hole in his skull- one that is NOT supposed to be there. So I, being slightly off balance as I am, did the following:

“That looks like” [whips off glasses and pauses for dramatic effect] “Blunt force trauma to the skull. Yeeeaaah! [Cue the CSI Miami theme song]”.

And then my group burst of laughing. Because, apparently, I’m funny.

So we messed with people’s heads for a bit, and it was actually a lot more fun than you would think, but it wasn’t… you know; ‘wow’.

Then our very last anatomy practical rolled around. That was kind of sad. No, not the practical, just that it was the last one. The respiratory system was pretty awesome too. It’s like the heart; sure, bones are fun and all, but nothing beats an actual human organ.

Each group was given a pair of lungs, a left and a right of course. For me, it was kind of like take what you know about it, and toss it out the window. See, the way we perceive the lungs to sit in the human thorax is actually incorrect. Yes, the way the show it in pictures is not proper. That is in actual fact the side view of the lungs i.e. the thinner ends face outward. It’s confusing, I know, but try it like this:

Hold your hands out in front of you, palms facing outward. That’s the way we’re used to seeing it. Now, turn your hands so that your palms face each other. That is exactly how the lungs sit in your thorax. Peculiar, isn’t it?

Even more strange than that though it what the lungs feel like. It’s rather difficult to describe, and I made several people gag when I explained it like this; “It feels kind of like… say, if you had a plastic packet and filled it with mousse and then poked at it… well that’s what it feels like to poke a lung. A healthy one anyway.”

I was so careful with this practical, obviously because you’re never quite sure what to expect. Even so, I got lung juices on myself. Yeah. Gross. It’s my own fault, I suppose. I did poke the thing after all. Okay so maybe I’m exaggerating just a tad bit. It wasn’t exactly lung juices… it was more like the formaldehyde the organs are preserved in, but still. It’s helluva repulsive to get sprayed with the stuff. And I really was sprayed. I poke it, and the liquid shot out like a fountain. Again, people laughed.

I rather think they quite think I’m a joke. I mean honestly, even one of my lecturers shook her head at me, “This girl…” and laughed as she walked away. Ah, but it’s all in good humour.

That’s another lesson right there: if you can’t laugh and take a load off now and then, in this field, you’ll go crazy.

22 May 2013