the first cut is the deepest.

so today was the first "real" day... whereas yesterday was just all smoke and bells.  or whatever that phrase is.

lecture = not as bad as i expected.  i was expecting extremely dry "this is here... this is here... this is here...".  okay, now that i think about it... that's totally what it was.  but for some reason it wasn't bad.  i think i was just kind of starved for knowledge.  we'll see how that goes from here.

lab.  our first day of cutting!  today was a lot of work.  first we did the typical "y" cut... and then some and just peeled back the layer of skin/some fat.  which was wicked hard to do w/o getting any muscle or breast tissue.  but we did a kick ass job and most of the TAs and docs told us so.  then after we were done with that, i cut her right breast completely off.  which... was a little unnerving.  i mean, i took the lady's breast!  but it's a perfect breast and i then i cut it down the middle so we can totally see all the lobules, glands, ducts and sinuses that we had just talked about in class.  i made sure to impress all of the TAs with the breast in the hopes that they would use it for our test.  i think that's kind of the goal in this game -- do a damn good job dissecting so they pick your cadaver for various parts of the test, which you will already have dissected yourself and therefore know exactly where they are.  anyway.  so then we took the fatty/fascia layer off.  cut all that away and checked out the pectoralis major and minor, along with some arteries, veins and nerves which were wicked hard to see and even harder not to accidentally cut.  plus everything is the same damn color so i'm going to have such a hard time telling these things apart on the test.  ugh.  sooo anyway... after that we get to the fun part.  i took a bone saw and sawed through the ribs/sternum so we could create a sort of little window into her thoracic cavity.  i loved sawing through bone.  so good.  i'm going to have to think about orthopedic surgery.  so then -- tada!  lungs and heart!  the lungs had little black spots on them but not many which is apparently really good for an older woman.  she probably never smoked a thing, poor girl.  oh, also, when we went deeper into the tissue on the left side of her chest wall she definitely had like partially digested dried blood in there, which i'm guessing adds to the trauma that we're thinking she experienced.  a bunch of her ribs were also broken on either side -- most likely from CPR, and we found an electrode still on the outside of her chest too.  so anyway, i squished the lungs a little in my hand and felt around them -- sooo squishy.  i love how they feel.  and by this time we were SO done.  what a long day.  ugh.  three hours of dissecting everyday.  it doesn't sound like much but i was so ready to get out of there after an hour and a half.  

we had our first day of professionalism and ethics today as well.  meh.  nothing exciting there.

also worth mentioning is that the smell did not bother me today.  even on my hands.  it was kind of comforting almost.  ...that's just weird.