Tears of fear

You wanna know how I know that I work at a kick ass funeral home? Listening to Metallica with Jeff, one of the owners, on our way to a graveside committal.  We really do put the 'death metal' in 'mortician'.

No matter what you do for a job you will always have your good days and your bad days. Although I have only been an apprentice going on two weeks now, I would say that the majority of my time at work has been great. I have learned a lot and have really started feeling like I belong here at The Home.

Today started off simple enough, I arrived at work early this morning and started in on the laundry. Some careless fool (not me, mind you) had put a load in the dryer that had some paper product in it so when I pulled it out it was like snow falling everywhere in great clumps. So not only did I need to fold and put away the laundry, I also had to clean up this massive snow storm of paper that was falling everywhere. Side note: Whenever you are doing laundry that isn't yours, I would recommend wearing gloves. There is some (literal) gross shit out there that you might be coming into contact with and you do not want that all over your hands.

Anyways, after I cleaned up I got to help Mitch dress some bodies and do a little bit of cosmetic work. Once a body has been embalmed they are placed on a cloth covered table until they are ready to be dressed for their viewing. When we are ready to dress them, we take the body back into the embalming room and aspirate the torso using the trocar. This is done to prevent any seepage that might have occurred since the embalming and also makes it so that once the body is dressed we don't need to worry about any weepy privates. In instances where the body might be weepy even after the second aspiration we will put on what looks like plastic pantaloons on the body and then put an absorbing powder over the privates and then seal everything up with packing tape. Not very pretty, but thankfully no one but the funeral director ever sees this step.

When everything is said and done the body is then finally ready to be clothed. Families are generally pretty good about providing clothes for us but if they were to forget anything chances are it would be underwear, bras, socks, and an undershirt. If you do forget these items we typically have a stock pile that we pull from to make sure your loved one is fully clothed. Getting an undershirt on a body without cutting it takes skill and practice, but thankfully Mitch showed me how.

We had two bodies to clothe and cosmitize; a man and a woman. The man we clothed was given a tuxedo suit minus the jacket (ironically this man was also an illegal immigrant which is a paperwork nightmare to deal with). The woman I helped worked on was the same woman that I had done the removal of from Racine. Her coloring had really improved since the embalming, and after clothing her I got to pain her nails a really nice shade of pink that I think my Grandma would have really liked.

After lunch I inventoried some register books that had arrived. Mitch came and got me, saying that we were going to the Medical Examiner's office to transfer a body into our care.  This of course meant that the body would have had an autopsy performed on it. When I looked at the call sheet that had our transfer's information on it, I saw that it was a man who was only one year younger than I. Correction, this guy would have celebrated his 23rd birthday in just a few weeks. So going in, I knew that working on this individual would be difficult for me.

When we arrived at the M.E. it was busy as usual. Once we stepped inside, even before gaining admittance into the pick up room, we were overwhelmed with the stench of death and decay. After gaining entry, we saw the reason why, On one of the prep-tables was what appeared to be a man that had not been found for a few days after his death. His stomach was bloated and distorted and had turned a putrided green color. His fingertips were already black and his neck and lower jaw were quickly advancing to the blackened state of decay.

It took me a long while to become 'nose-blind' to the stench, even after they pushed his body into the morgue coolers, but with death you never fully become 'nose-blind' to that smell. Every neuron in your body is on fire, compelling you to run away from whatever it is that is causing that horrible smell. Thankfully I didn't run, I only gagged a little.

Once our paperwork was done on our transfer the examiner went into the cooler to retrieve the body. The body inside the white plastic bag was really large, larger than any of the bodies that I had ever worked on up until this point. Trying to fit our ID bracelet around his ankle almost proved impossible this kid was so big. I had to ask Mitch for help trying to get his feet inside the bag so we could zip it up and transfer him onto our gurney. Before we transfer we always make sure that our plastic bag that we save from our casket deliveries is on the gurney because body bags from the M.E.'s office are always wet from the rinse down.

So once our van was loaded we started to head back to The Home, and Billy Joel's "Only The Good Die Young" came on. How horribly fitting. Here we had this 22 year old male in the back of our van who had died from, God know's what, and we were taking him into our care to prepare his body for what was to be a direct cremation.

While we were driving back, I expressed to Mitch how unsure I was about being able to do the prep on this body. I was already pretty nauseous having to endure that horrible smell of death, on top of having a head cold from last night. Mitch was understanding and said I could take a few moments before we started. After arriving back at The Home I changed into my scrubs and sat down for a moment. I texted my mom about what I was about to do, and said that I was really unsure how I was going to handle working on not only my first autopsy, but my first person who was around my age. My mom gave me some words of encouragement and I went into the prep room. Thankfully the body was still inside the bags and Steve had just walked in the door.

I asked Steve if he would be willing to help with the prep since I was so unsure of myself. Bless his heart he was more than happy to help me out, and Mitch was very understanding of everything. I took another moment and excused myself to the bathroom, where I proceeded to weep. Why I was crying I do not know. Probably because this guy was just a year younger than me, and probably because I could only imagine what hell his family must be going through right now. After composing myself I proceeded to gown up along Mitch and Steve.

And then the unveiling began.

I took a moment to step out as they unzipped the body bags, just so I didn't have to witness the horrible surprise that awaited us all. Once they were done I came back into the room and saw blood. A lot of blood. Everywhere.

The Y incision that the medical examiner had made was roughly sewen  to basically keep the guy's internal organs, which were in a plastic bag, inside his body cavity. Now since this body was to be a direct cremation and there was going to be no visitation, we did not need to embalm him.

Pros of embalming an autopsy body: the arteries we use are already exposed so it makes that job really easy.

Cons of embalming an autopsy body: there is blood everywhere, and we have to take the organs out of the bag and place them in another container where we soak them to cure them, and then we do bobbing for organs to place them back inside the body cavity, brain included.

But this poor soul was not to be embalmed, so instead we began to sew him up. If you have ever wondered what it is like to sew through human flesh it is a lot like sewing through leather. We use what is called a baseball stitch whenever we have to sew up or any part of a body, and it looks exactly like it sounds, a baseball. We also put this absorbing powder over the incisions and inside the cavity to prevent any further bleeding.

And no, we did not re-open him up...not in this case at least.

What shocked me most about seeing this kid cut open like this was how flat his head was without his skull cap, and how red his insides were. I know that sounds stupid, but everything was so red. Normally when you cut someone open there is a layer of fat which is yellow, but if that existed on this individual it was dyed red from all his blood.

After observing for a moment and growing accustomed to everything, Steve and I took turns sewing up the body. Mitch showed us what was to be done with the head. He flipped the flap of skin that covered this persons head over and took off the skull cap. What we found was really shocking. On top of the skull was a hole about the size of a nickle. This lead us to believe that perhaps this individual died from a self inflicted gunshot wound, but since his mouth was already sealed we couldn't 'confirm.'.

Mitch took what looked like brown putty and placed some inside the skull over the hole of the spinal column, this would prevent any seepage from occurring. He then sprayed everything inside, and on the flip side of the skin, with a skin drying agent that would also absorb any blood and moisture. Then he stuffed a bunch of cotton into the cavity and placed the skull cap in place. Now a lot of morticians will use metal brackets to anchor the cap, but Mitch is old school and instead gathered some string and "sewed" it in by basically creating a sling and having the string hold behind the muscles of the ears.

Once the cap is securely in place Mitch replaced the skin flap and began sewing. Thankfully the medical examiner had begun their incision well behind the ear, which means that had the family requested a visitation it makes our work as morticians easier; also this gentleman had a head full of thick hair which covered the sewing nicely.

After all the king's men (and woman) put Humpty Dumpty back together again we had to wash the body of all the blood and then clean up.

Later I found out that this individual did not die from a self inflicted gun shot wound to the head, but instead of an accidental over dose. The hole in his head was from some sort of brain/head issue that he was having and the doctors had prescribed him some pain medication and he unfortunately over dosed before his medial condition could be treated.

I was truly thankful that Steve was there to help me out in such a difficult time, and as I thanked him he said, "No problem, that's what I'm here for, we apprentices' got to stick together." and how true, how very very true.

Until next time.