This past weekend I was blessed with the ability to go home to Stevens Point and see my mom and some of my friends. It was a very much needed reprieve from the usual grind that I have been dealing with over the last few weeks.
Friday night when I got into town, my derby wife called me up asking if I wanted to go downtown for a drink -- of course I wanted a drink! I needed some social interaction with living people around my age. And boy am I glad that I went out. I had a BLAST! Got to see some old friends that I haven't seen in a very long time. Also had a lot of people come up to me saying that they read my blogs and really like them. So if you were one of those people who came up to me on Friday, thank you. Seriously thank you from the bottom of my heart. It was not only awesome getting a chance to see your friendly face, but it really made my night knowing that you take the time to read about my crazy and sometimes disturbing life.
Michelle and I ended up staying out until bar close, which is something that we typically do not do, but we were just having such a fun time with some new and old friends. We learned that neither one of us is particularly good at pool, but given the chance we can play a pretty decent game of Foosball.
Then on Saturday night Michelle and I went bowling, which was hysterical in the sense that neither one of us got a score above 100. Although Michelle was only one point away from reaching triple digits. It was also brought to my attention that I throw the bowling balls totally weird. When I tried throwing them the 'right' way they kept curving to the left and going into the gutter...regardless I suck a bowling, no matter how I throw the ball.
In regards to work, I know in my last blog I talked about a case where a construction worker was killed on site and that I was very nervous about how I would react to seeing the body. The day that we were to bring him into our care, I was told to go out to our other location and listen to the phones since we had no closing secretary out there. I figured that this was God's way of protecting me from seeing something that I could avoid until further along in my career...I wish I had been so lucky.
When someone is dismembered and their body is brought to the medical examiner, the ME typically will not re-attach the severed limbs. When the body is brought into the care of a funeral home, if there is a viewing (provided the body is view-able) the funeral director will take the time to reattach the limbs. Even though this person was to be directly cremated with no viewing, Mitch and David who worked on the body, thought it was important to make this individual whole again, and they did a very good job I must say. He was defiantly not in 'open casket' shape, but at least he was put back together and given a dignified cremation.
Later that week we had another call where someone died at work -- suffering some severe head trauma after falling from a great height. I had over heard Jim taking this call and apparently the Medical Examiner had told the family that the body had suffered significant damage and may not be view-able. After the call Jim explained to me that this can be some what of a pet peeve for funeral directors. Yes we are thankful that the ME tells the family the condition of the body, however they are not the ones trained to put the body back together for a viewing. So by them telling the family that a viewing may not be possible, they are giving them really no hope and the family comes in thinking that cremation with a memorial service may be one of their only options.
In this case I went to the ME with David to bring this person into our care and asked if we would open the body bag fully at the ME to view the damage. "Oh absolutely," said David. And I began to ready myself for the absolute worse case scenario. I remember that the ME's office was particularly ripe with the smell of death and decay that day, a smell that you really never get use to.
Once the examiner pulled out our body David opened up the bag. It had been a very long time since I had worked on an autopsy and almost forgot that in an autopsy the head is covered with a plastic bag due to the cranial cap being removed. So David pulled up the plastic bag so he could view the face. I gathered my strength to look and through all the blood I could see that this individuals nose had been crushed in and there was a pretty significant laceration from their accident going across their face below the cheek. Not horrible, but then again not very pretty.
I asked David on the way back, that if he was the director on this case and the family wanted to do an open casket what would he say? He told me that he would be open and honest with the family in regards to the damage done to the face; and that if they wanted an open casket, there would be a significant amount of cosmetics and reconstruction of the nose. He was confident in the skills of our staff to provide the family with the viewing and services that they wanted. When we got back David must have talked to Jim who was meeting with the family because this case became an open casket viewing meaning that the body would of course be embalmed.
I didn't get the opportunity to work on the body because it was not my night on, but the results of the embalming were fairly typical of that of an autopsy. I was surprised however that they did not do a full reconstruction of the nose that night. I asked why, and David said that they had wanted to body to set and basically dry out in the facial abrasions so that the reconstruction would adhere to the face properly. This reminded me of the homicide case that I had worked on a few months back. The lacerations in the persons face were left open to dry so that we could super glue them closed and apply facial wax.
I clearly have a lot to learn in regards to the fine art of reconstruction and cosmetics. But this is something that I look forward to greatly with hopes that one day I will be regarded as one of the best in the business.
Did I mention that this case was the third work related death that we brought in, in the last two weeks? Yeah scary stuff, so be sure to be extra cautious at work everybody, especially those of you who work around heavy machinery.
Well that was my weekend and the last week of work for me. I hope that everyone is adjusting to Daylight Savings and enjoying the warmer weather that we had today. Spring is right around the corner, huzzah! Here is hoping that these next two weeks of work will be low impact on my psyche and I will maintain a positive growth in my apprenticeship.
Thank you again to all my friends and family who read my blog and support what I do. You guys are all amazing and I treasure the time that I get to spend with you.
Until next time.
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