...Physically, I'm alright, mentally...that is to be determined.
Yesterday on my way to work I was involved in a car accident. My first car accident actually since I have been driving. It was raining pretty hard and I was in the middle lane trying to merge into the right when I side swiped a car. Thankfully both of us were okay and my car only suffered cosmetic damage.
Eventually I made it to work and got busy doing various things. First they wanted me to work on a video and print a prayer card, but the prayer card became more involved than I had anticipated so Caleb had to step in and take over. While he was working on that I decided to find other work, and was told to set the features on a gentleman that had just been transferred into our care.
This was my second time working by myself setting the features but I felt pretty confident in what I had to do. I sprayed him down with disinfectant and placed the eye caps onto. This gentleman had facial hair, but since it was to be a closed casket with no embalming I did not have to shave him. The most difficult part about feature setting in the sealing of the mouth. I asked Dani to help supervise and give advice because this task takes a lot of hand dexterity which, when you are wearing gloves and have to not only hold the wire in place but also hold a large awkward tool for drilling, makes it very hard. (You're not actually drilling the wire into the gums, you're more or less using a tool that pounds it into the bone/hard tissue.)
So once you have the wires implanted into the upper and bottoms gums, you then must hold the jaw in place, all the while trying to twist the wires to keep the mouth shut. This part is also extremely difficult and requires dexterity, which I am beginning to build but still haven't quite mastered. Thankfully this gentleman's face was very full, so I did not have to use a lot of cotton to fill out his cheeks, nor did I need 'mouth fix' to seal his lips.
Once I was done setting the features I bathed him and washed his hair. When all was said and done I had completed a successful feature setting.
After cleaning everything up I was told to wash all the vehicles, a joyless task that becomes almost mind numbing after a while. When that was done I was finally able to eat dinner before I was to set out to our other location for a visitation.
Right as I was about to leave the parking lot, I noticed that my car was driving funny. I got out and saw that my front passenger side wheel was flat from the accident. So here I am freaking out because I need to be somewhere in 30 minutes and I have no way of getting there. I called Jim and he said to try and fix my flat and to see if Steve would be able to help. I go ask Steve, who is currently cleaning up the prep room after doing an embalming and he said he would try once he was done.
So I go out to my car and roll out my spare along with my jack. Now I have never changed a tire before but know the basic mechanics of it....did I mention that it has been raining all day? Because of course it has to raining while I'm trying to fix my flat. Thankfully I changed into my sweater that I had worn at school to preserve my work shirt for the visitation.
While I am trying to fix this flat, Caleb returns having just completed running an errand. He comes over trying to help, and immediately says that I'm doing it wrong. Apparently you need to loosen the lug nuts before you jack the car all the way up. So I try to lower it and he says not to bother since it's up. Caleb then proceeds to basically jump on the tire iron trying to get the lug nut to loosen. This is when Steve comes out and basically just stands around 'supervising' us. Because Caleb is jumping on my car, he causes it to roll off the jack. This is where I politely tell Caleb to back the fuck off my car, you've done enough.
I then try to find out where the closest tow trucking company is so that they can come out and help fix my flat. Caleb, Tweedle Dumbass, asks if I know anyone who might have a torque wrench, to which I again, politely tell him, no, I'm from fucking Stevens Point, I have no friends in Milwaukee asides you fuckers, and that is not by choice!
Eventually I get a hold of a towing company who say that they can get out within an hour and a half. AN HOUR AND A FUCKING HALF! It is already 6, I was suppose to be at our other location at 6! I call Jim and let him know, and although I can tell he is frustrated (with me or Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbass, I don't know) but really this whole situation is out of my control.
So Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbass leave me all alone, waiting for the tow truck guy to come out and I go back inside and proceed to have the meltdown of the century. Eventually when I gain my composure I call my mom and just complain about how much being an adult sucks, and blah blah blah.
Shortly after 7 the tow truck guy comes and promptly removes my flat and attaches my spare. I watch closely how he does this so that in the future, I will not need to rely on anyone BUT MYSELF for this issue. I explain to him what happened and asked him to take a quick look my car and he says that the rim of the tire looks good and that nothing looked damaged aside cosmetic. He even recommended the same place that Jim did to get my tire fixed, which was comforting.
After paying Eric the Tow Truck Man $63 for his services, I proceed onto our other location. As I merge onto the highway I see that there is another accident and that they are loading a gentleman into the back of an ambulance. I count my lucky stars and thank the Lord that, that was not me earlier today. (Did I mention that right before I got into the accident I recited the Lord's Prayer? Yup, thank's God!)
By the time I get to our other chapel I had calmed down considerably. Everyone is asking if I'm okay and I recite my whole dramatic monologue that has been brewing inside of my head all day. Ironically I was really happy to be at work finishing this visitation because not only was this family just absolutely wonderful and sweet, it also helped me end my day on somewhat of a good note, knowing that I am doing something good instead of going back to my dorm and bitching about all the shit I had gone through.
So all that shit happened yesterday.
Today, I had to be at work at 7 to help load vans to go to churches because guess what guys, we had three funerals today! Two in the morning and one this afternoon. Once I loaded up one of the vans, we got a death call for a house visit, along with another call for a removal from a hospital.
The van that I had just loaded, had to be unloaded so we could go to the hospital and transfer this body into our care. Now this woman that we had picked up had to also be taken to the M.E. for viewing, but because we were in such a rush to get to church and do this house call, we had to drop her off at The Home, then swing around to do the house call, then drop that woman off, load up the van yet again and go to church to set up. Thankfully by this time another apprentice had come in so I did not have to go to church to set up, instead I got to take the woman from the hospital to the M.E. all by myself!
I can tell that I am becoming more adapted to Milwaukee by not having to rely on my GPS to get around all the time...and also I have been to the M.E. a bunch of times so that helps. I can also tell that they are beginning to rely on me more at work since I am doing tasks like this by myself. Normally we always have two people to do removals, but since this woman only had to be viewed I was okay to go by myself.
Whenever one goes to the M.E. one must always represent where they work with pride and dignity. Apparently I work at one of the few funeral homes that supply their apprentices and directors with name tags because the other directors (or apprentices) I ran into at the M.E. didn't have them...or were being dicks and were not wearing them.
Once I was done at the M.E. I transported the remains back to The Home and got the woman ready on the prep table for her alternative care. While this was going on, we had two guys from the M.E. come out to remove one of our bodies because guess what kids, a hospital severely fucked up on the cause of death of this individual and this gentleman needed an autopsy! Oh and let me just say that this was the gentleman who died on October 1st and we did not transfer him into our care because the family could not afford to pay us. THE FIRST OF OCTOBER! This man has been dead for over two weeks and they are just NOW catching their mistake? Seriously, what the flying FUCK goes on at these hospitals that these doctors can not give an accurate cause of death!?!?! Let us be happy that we did not embalm this man...even if we could have (which being two weeks dead and kept in a cooler makes for a very difficult embalming)
So finally all the shenanigans seem to be dying down. Jack tells me that I will be going to church to set up for the third service. Things more or less go as planned and after an hour I'm told to go back to The Home and do a delivery for one of the families that we held the service for earlier today.
One of the things I really enjoy doing are deliveries. Flowers suck, don't get me wrong, I fucking HATE flowers. They tip, they spill, you get covered in pollen, but I love talking to families and explaining the register book that we create and more or less answering any questions that they might have. This family was very sweet and helped me unload the flowers and wanted information about pre-planning their own funerals, which is pretty much the best compliment you can get knowing that your work is so great that they themselves want to come to you for their own funerals.
When I get back after the delivery I hear that Steve and Caleb have left to do a removal, after having just gotten back from doing one that was 30 minutes away. That means that we have done four removals, and I think there were two or three pending still. Regardless I'm not on call so the fucks I give are microscopic if non-existent.
And this whole time David has been in the embalming room, working on an embalming and doing alternative prep on the bodies that we have seemingly collected over the course of the day.
My biggest question is where the hell are we going to be keeping these bodies. We only have 9 tables to physically put bodies on, I think we are now entering into makeshift tables involving alternative containers and casket trucks, but I won't find that out until tomorrow when I go in.
Until next time.
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