#anatomise

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d a y  f o u r

I’d found it, my life long career; performing autopsies. The trouble was, I’d never seen a dead body so I didn’t know how I would react. Of course I’d seen them in true crime documentaries but it’s nothing like seeing it in person and of course you can’t smell anything through a screen. I had the same words go through my head that I’ve heard countless times on tv shows, “once you see it you can’t un-see it”. Will it effect me as much as these people say it will? Will it forever change me? The only way I would ever know was to just go and do it, I mean, I couldn’t just end this all right now. 

I started enquiring at mortuaries to see if they had any suitable positions available. I was mostly faced with grumpy managers who wouldn’t even give me the time of day. I had gone down my whole list of phone numbers and had given up hope, there was one left. I had already assumed it would be a no so I didn’t give it much hope, but I called anyway. It started off as they all had done, the other party being quite on guard and me being happy and cheerful, and by the end of the call he wanted me to come down to meet him the same afternoon. 

I was excited yet extremely anxious. I was going for a sort of interview with only 2 hours notice, what do I even wear to a mortuary? And then it dawned on me, I might see a dead body today and I didn’t know what to think. Obviously, this is the major point in this career and if I freak out or puke then all this has meant nothing. If I can’t handle seeing somebody dead then this definitely isn’t the right career for me, and I’m back at square one. 

We talked for two hours about everything and anything. I think he was just trying to gauge my character as at this moment in time he didn’t have a job for me but there might be one in the future. As I assumed, he asked why. I gave him my honest answer “I love anatomy and I think the human body is beautiful” and that seemed to appease him. He then asked the big question, “have I ever seen a dead body before?”, and I truthfully told him no. He and I knew exactly what that meant, I’m trying to get into this industry without even having experienced the main focus. 

He stood up and asked me to follow him. I knew exactly what was going to happen. This was it, the first time I will ever see a dead body, a corpse, a cadaver, and all my past thoughts were going through my head. What if I do freak out and make a complete idiot of myself, making our 2 hour conversation irrelevant. 

It was the complete opposite. When I first stepped into the post mortem room I stopped in my tracks to take it all in, it was so strange. Quiet and peaceful yet odd and unnerving. We are so used to seeing people moving, with colour in their skin, but these people were stiff and pale. It takes a minute for your mind to comprehend what you’re seeing, it’s just not used to it. These people weren’t just lying there either, they were in the middle of having an autopsy. Abdomens open and brains out.

After the initial shock wore off, I became excited and so fascinated by the scene that was in front of me, I wanted to go over and see everything in more detail. I started to smile and the man that lead me there knew instantly this was right for me. I guess most peoples reaction to seeing someones empty skull isn’t to want to go over and get a closer look. But this was mine. 

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lofi hip hop beats to anatomise to

[anatomiseblog]

d a y  f i v e

I now had to come to terms with the fact that I found corpses interesting. This was something altogether more challenging than I had realised. Did this make me some psycho or would it turn me into some mass murdering psychopath. If I was even thinking these things, what would everyone else think of me? Would it be easier to keep this all a secret until I had a job and then just say I worked in a hospital, that’s what everyone else in the industry were telling people. 

No, I just couldn’t do that. After seeing these bodies my whole outlook on life changed, I no longer wanted to waste my life hiding who I was and I was no longer going to let my anxiety hold me back. This is exactly what I wanted to do and I didn’t want to hide it from anyone. I wanted to be able to share how all of this has changed me and made me appreciate my body for the beautiful machine it is. I just needed to gain the courage to do just that. 

After calling around some more mortuaries and again being turned down over and over again, I got through to a place that was willing to help. This is when all my luck changed. I was invited to come down and spend the morning with them and meet the team. They didn’t have any current jobs going but may do in the future and having the experience of going in and spending sometime with them would only help my chances for when it came up. He asked me if I wanted to observe a full post mortem and I jumped at the opportunity, of course I wanted to! So we arranged at date and time for me to come down.

It was an early morning for me, up at 5am and out of the door by 6, only time for one coffee and one cigarette. When I arrived I was welcomed at the door by the man I had been talking to and who had invited me down. He was a lovely happy soul and he instantly made me feel at ease. My anxiety was running high at this point knowing full well what I was about to see but he and the team we so lovely and welcoming my anxiety started to drift away. 

After having a quick chat with everyone I was asked to change into scrubs. YES! Finally I was in proper scrubs, a dream I had since I was a little girl. They were burgundy and so comfy, it was like wearing pjs in work. After I was changed we went through to the post mortem room. 

This was much more organised and clean than the other one I went to. As soon as you walked in there was a sterile space and then over a half-wall/tiled bench was the pm room. I was given a surgical gown to put on along with a plastic apron and given a pair of wellies as well and a face shield. After putting all of this on we scooted over the tiled bench and were now fully in the pm room. 

[anatomiseblog]

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d a y  o n e

For as long as I can remember I've had a fascination with the human body. Obsessed with my mothers medical books, I would look through pages and pages of skin diseases entranced by how they looked and how they could've happened. Some days I would try and miss school just to be able to go to work with her, unfortunately with her being a doctor I was frequently unsuccessful in my lies of not being well enough to go. The days when I was successful were filled with playing with stethoscopes, laying on examination beds, drawing with drug rep pens on drug rep sticky notes, surrounded by hundreds of patient files and the coming and go of medical aliments. I loved this, not just because I could spend the day with my mum but because it was all so interesting to me. As time went on and as I drifted through school life I was torn between two paths; going down the medical or scientific route or following another passion. Music. I had seen my mum struggle with her career for many years because of lack of free time and late nights. There were nights when I would have to come in the car with her to attend patient houses because she was on call. I could see she found it difficult to be away from me so much and how the stress of her job was affecting her. I didn't want this for me. I didn't want to resent my job, I wanted it to be fun and something I enjoyed doing and it seemed as if a life in medicine would be none of those things. So I went down a route of creativity, focusing on media and photography to hopefully lead into a career in the music industry. I pursued this path for the rest of my educational life, putting too much of my time and money into something that never materialised. This was such a difficult time in my life, I knew what I wanted but after getting knocked back repeatedly I wasn't willing to push myself anymore.I was going through medical issues and sunk down into a deep depression. I no longer knew where I was going or what I wanted to do. I had no drive and no passion for anything I used to care so much about and that's when it nearly all came to an end. The turning point came when I had a car accident. After losing my car and feeling pretty sorry for myself I knew I couldn't just keep coasting by, I needed to find something more purposeful to do with my life. I started creating anatomical art work and once again looking at medical books, and I allowed myself to reconsider a life in medicine. I didn't know in what area but I knew that this was the right direction to be going.