day one of the rest of my life.

well.  i made it to day one.  actually day one isn't over yet, but we've got a massive break in the middle so i decided to walk home and make myself a salad.  salad with apples, walnuts and blue cheese.  so good.

lecture was quick and we didn't learn anything.  it was actually pretty disappointing.  i was expected to be trying to drink water out of the fire hydrant by now.  i guess that will have to wait for tomorrow.

now for the fun stuff.  i met my cadaver today.  i named her gwenevive.  i have no idea how to spell that.  i'm not sure that my group liked the name, but no one came up with anything else so that is what stuck.  thats what she looked like to me anyway.  i think i'll call her viv.  maybe miss viv.

she's older.  i'm going to take a wild guess and say... 65.  although it's hard to tell how old seeing that she's been dead for a couple of years.  can you believe that?  they keep them embalmed for a couple of years supposedly in some place in kansas before they ship them to us.  and she was face down so her face is all smushed.  she's pretty much the same color... pasty off white-ish dead color, from head to toe.  i think she was in some sort of accident.  she's got a massive contusion on her left upper arm, and her head has a large incision running around the ear towards the top of the skull that was stapled shut.  i'm thinking she was in an accident and had to have emergency brain surgery or something.  and didn't make it.  or maybe she just died after a routine surgery and had the bruise from something else.  //shrug.  i would kind of like to have received a short medical history on her.  or at least a cause of death.  oh well, i guess  making it up and exploring inside of her to find out can be fun too.

we haven't cut yet.  that's tomorrow.  today was lube day.  we vasaline-d her extremities, face, and genetalia and then soaked her with more preservative, wrapped her in a cloth and put her legs and arms in little bags.

my group seems like they will be on top of things.  there's 6 of us working on gwen.  three physician assistants, one physical therapist, one pathology assistant and one nurse anesthetist.

i will be smelling like embalming fluid/dead things for the next three months.  i can smell it when i bring my fork up to my mouth, and i've already washed my hands/forearms three times.  excellent.