A Year In Review

2014 has been a difficult and interesting year. I spent half of it working in retail before I decided to go back to school to become a funeral director. Now I am an apprentice working in a great Milwaukee based funeral home.

I had to spend both Thanksgiving  and Christmas down here and now New Years, which has been a first, but the experience  has taught me that time spent with family and loved ones is very important.

I have learned a lot, more so about death than love or life unfortunately, but I hope that that will even out in the new year.

I went on many great adventures with many wonderful people over this year. Traveled the farthest  north that I have ever been in Wisconsin, and even got to walk across the Michigan boarder. Also got to go to Disneyworld  for the first time ever and spend it with my wonderful sorority sisters.

My hope for 2015 is to break out of my comfort zone and get to meet new people, especially as I begin the process of moving down here in the spring.

Thank you to all my friends and family who have supported me through my crazy adventure of becoming a funeral director. I pray that none of you will be in need  of my services  this coming year, but if you should find yourself caught up in the turmoil of death know that I am here for you and wish to help you in anyway that I can.

May you all have a joyful  and safe new year.

Until next time.

Hell Week

If you remember from my previous blog, I had mention that with the holidays and winter comes our busy season in the death industry...or at least our funeral home. This week  showed me just how busy and crazy it can get. So let's do a hell week recap!

Monday: We have an evening visitation at our main location and everything is going fairly well...until this one elderly gentleman starts to pass out and vomit black bile aka blood. We called 911 and they sent a fire truck over...and then they called for an ambulance once they realize his blood pressure was continuing to drop and after he reenacted a scene from The Exorcist only this time swapping out the pea soup with black bile. Guess who the lucky person was who had to clean that up! Thankfully he made it all into the blue recycling bin. Out of everything I do, and encounter on a daily basis, vomit will always be a gagging trigger for me. I don't believe we got any calls that night.

Tuesday: Caleb and I had to go on a call to a hospital which usually isn't a big deal. This time however proved to be such a pain in the ass because the entry into the morgue is by the loading docks and you need to take a lift up. Well there was a semi trailer not only blocking the lift but partially the stars as well. We had called security but they pretty much useless, so Caleb and I decided to drop the got and climb up the stairs. Once we got in we got the body and I was ready to put our ankle identification bracelet on her. When I opened up the body bag I saw that she was a double leg amputee and was fairly large, it is safe to say she was fairly spherical with her double amputation. Due to this our second leg strap was worthless which meant she was only locked in around the ribs, which really made me nervous about going down the stairs in case her weight shifted. After looking at how close the semi was parked to the wall, we decided to try to take the lift down but keep the gate in instead of locking in (because it swings out to open). This meant that we had to put the cot in at an angle an each hold on to its ends with dear life. We made it safely down and after dropping the cot only one level, were able to squeeze all the way down. It was truly a feat of daring, but we made it. Later that day we unfortunately had to pick up the body of Michelle's brother-in-law, from the M.E. because he had died of a drug over dose, he was only 30 and left behind two little boys and his fiance.

Wednesday: Even though we had two services that day, I didn't work either one because they were day services and I was in school.  Michelle and her family did a private viewing on their dearly departed which started at 5:30, and wasn't done until 7:30. Normally we only allow for an hour but since Michelle works there and there was no one else around obviously we made an exception. I got to meet her sister (now widow) and her little nephews. It was truly heart breaking hearing them say "why is daddy so cold?" and "give daddy a hug good bye, promise him you'll be a good boy." I can not even begin to image what kind of hell Michelle and her family are going through. Drugs are absolutely the worst and take the lives of too many people.
So when I got done at 7:30, I went back to my dorm, only to get called back in at 9 for a removal; I was literally 3 minutes away from my dorm and then got another call and didn't get done until 12:15 a.m.  On that second call we were told that it was a house call and that the man was around 240 lbs, big, but should still be manageable with our regular cot...we were lied to. This guy was well pushing over 300 lbs, and should have been placed on our bariatric cart. To top it off we had to go up and down a sharp incline of stairs with a very obese man...I was petrified of dropping the body or slipping on the stairs....turns out my fear was misplaced because when we got back to The Home the cots back legs didn't click in and ended up dropping....my greatest fear realized. I will mention that my partner Kevin and I did notice that this gentleman had a very red and swollen eye, but the hospice nurse checked off the "No" box for needing to inform the medical examiner, we noticed this at the house before the issue with the cot.

Thursday: After spending a good chunk of my day making register books and videos, Dani asked me about what was going on with the guy with the black eye that Kevin and I had removed last night. I told her what we knew (which was nothing, he was already pretty much like that, although now the swelling had gone down and staining had taken place). Turns out that we should have asked the hospice nurse as to what had happened because the M.E. who had come in was questioning it and thought it looked suspicious, who the fuck knows.

Friday: I worked one of the two services at our second location, and had to do a line up outside, so that is where I spent most of my time, until I came back and finished a bunch of books. Kevin and I got a removal call at around 7 p.m. that night, and at 9 p.m. Dani called me saying to come in early tomorrow for an embalming. Oh and Caleb asked if I would cover for him on Monday so he could go to the Packer game...he originally texted me, and I was ignoring it; until all of a sudden he magically showed up at work which he hardly ever does on a Friday until it's his night to be on call. I said I would...mainly because there was really no other option, which really sucks about this job. I ended up working 12 hours that day.

Saturday: I knew going into Saturday was going to be just absolutely wretched, and I was not wrong. I got in at 7 a.m. and Dani was already pretty much done with the embalming...yeah why the hell was I  even there?  We had 4 funerals that day, two at are main location, one at our other location, and one at church. I was stuck at our main location parking cars. Once service A was under way, it was stopped about half way through due to an elderly man fainting. Quick flash back to Monday!  Thankfully this man was not vomiting an ode to The Exorcist  We did have to call 911 and get the man taken to the hospital, all the while trying to get this other service underway. It was such pandemonium the parking lot because both services were doing a procession, but you could only start the line up for service A, to which we only had 4 cars....until the fuckers found out that there was going to be a free lunch, then everybody  wanted to go. So Sean and I are running around the parking lot trying to get flags on all the cars that are going in procession, and once we get that one done and on its way, service B gets done and the exact same fucking thing happens AGAIN! So now service B is done and we have to frantically clean because we have a family coming in to do a private viewing and another family coming in to do an arrangement Then we need to finish the books and get things ready for tomorrow. Oh and did I mention that we had two death calls, in two different cities? So now Kevin and I get to spend the rest of our afternoon driving across the great state of Wisconsin. First we go up to Oconomowoc because this removal was going to be embalmed, so that was about an hour of driving but the removal went well. Once we got back from Oconomowoc, we then had to go down to Racine not knowing that the woman we were transporting would be well over 400 lbs. Yeah, we couldn't even get the arm rests to go up let alone zip up our cot all the way. I have never seen Kevin drive so timidly before, taking very wide turns...believe me it was a good thing because this woman was barely on our cot. Again another case where, had we had known, we would have taken our bariactric cart. So now we are back from Racine and solicit the help from David to get this lady into our prep room, thankfully she was just alternative care. While Kevin is working on her, I go up front, only to encounter Jack taking yet another  death call, this one being at some creepy ass rest home in Milwaukee that Kevin and I have never been to. It is now 5:15 and the family says that we need to be there by 6...we get there at 6:10, after we finally figure out where it is that we need to go.

This place is just as creepy on the inside as it is on the outside, plus it is run by Polish speaking nuns in full nunnery. The family we met during this removal was really nice, but when we gave them some time to say good bye, Kevin and I were unaware that they were actually waiting on two more family members to come, so we waited for over half an hour...we were not pleased.

Kevin and I playing the waiting game

Praying to Jesus to give us strength and endurance to get through today. 

When we finally did leave, we had to walk back down this creepy ass hallway that was only partially lit. 

Gee doesn't that remind you a lot of this?

Just add some nuns in the background and you got yourself this creepy ass rest home that Kevin and I went to

 

So we finally get this removal done, only to find out that Dani has been waiting on us so we could get this embalming done. Kevin and I were not pleased, we were so over tired, we were getting slap happy. Thankfully with the three of us, and the fact that it was only a one point embalming, we were able to get it done within 30 minutes or so. By the time we were walking out the door it was 8 p.m. I had officially worked 13 hours.

Thus ends the official work week, tomorrow starts a new one


I pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to save me from sin, that we do not have any more calls today or tomorrow, but especially today.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring but pray that it doesn't end with me working another 13 hour shift.

Until next time.

(Un)Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

While everyone here has gone home for Thanksgiving break, I am currently stuck in Milwaukee until Friday night. This is the pain of working in the death industry and being an apprentice. I've worked retail for six years before working at The Home, so I am very familiar with having to forgo the traditional turkey dinner with friends and family to work Black Friday; which is more and more becoming a Black Thursday.  So having to stay in Milwaukee isn't all that surprising for me, but this is the first time where I will have to miss a holiday, and not even have the opportunity to see any of my friends and family. And for a young twenty-something living away from home for the first time; this is a really hard pill to swallow. (And don't even get me started on Christmas, another holiday that I will not be able to enjoy). I'm trying very hard not to be bitter about this situation, truly I am. So here is a list of some things that I am thankful for:

- I am thankful for my health and the health of my mother
- I am thankful to be above ground
- I am thankful to have a job doing something I really enjoy
- I am thankful for the opportunity to go back to school for this
- I am thankful for a roof over my head and that I have the whole dorm to myself
- I am thankful that I can sleep in and do nothing all day
- I am thankful for a car that works and is reliable

So that is the short of it. Tomorrow is Black Friday, and in the death industry it has a whole new meaning. This is the start of the busy season for us, and when you think about it, it makes logical sense. The weather during winter can get very bad and very cold causing horrible accidents thus driving (sometimes literally) people inside where disease and illness can run rampant, and on top of that you have the holidays which can be a very depressing time of year for many people (I am now starting to understand this better), thus the suicide and murder rate unfortunately goes up.

Murder? Murder you say? Well I am just guessing here, but I honestly would not be surprised if someone got killed over a $20 crock pot, or hated their present because it was for the wrong video game system and thus goes on a murderous rampage. Believe me, crazier shit has happened.

Tomorrow and going into this weekend we have two funerals every day. Which means even though it is not my weekend to work, I lose any ability to go home early, so I won't be seeing my mom until Friday night if the weather decides to cooperate.

In the grand scheme of things these are just small peanuts compared to what others go through, especially the families we service. For many this is the first Thanksgiving where their loved one will not be there because they have passed.

So if you're reading this in between basting your turkey or watching the football game, take a moment to say thank you to your loved ones for being around you. And give them a big hug and let them know you love them, because things can change dramatically in the blink of an eye.

Until next time.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

This weekend I was able to go home and spend some time with my mom and cat Jack. Sunday we had a bit of an emergency when Jackson got really sick due to some cat food. Mom and I had to drive almost thirty minutes north to the animal emergency hospital, but Jack was deemed okay and we were able to bring him home. We have to monitor his food and give him rice and chicken, but he should hopefully make a full recovery. Because of this little scare I decided to stay an extra night in Point and headed back to Milwaukee early this morning.

I was able to make it to school well before class started and got some studying in for my chemistry exam, which I think I did pretty good on. Going into work I knew that it was going to be a long day when I saw Kevin and Steve complaining about going into an embalming. I volunteered since tonight was my night on call to do it...I didn't realize that the embalming was an autopsy, this process as I have already described in some previous blogs takes a while to get through; and this body was discovered, meaning it was not in good shape.

Even though the body was not in full decomp, it was very black and blue, especially on the left side due to the fact the decedent was found dead on his left side. He apparently died while taking a nap, perhaps due to sleep apnea who knows. He was well over 250 lbs, and in his early 40's. His finger tips and left arm were purple and black, which makes our job as an embalmer really difficult because once that happens it is really hard to reverse; especially if the decedent has been dead for a few days. So at this point we are just working to preserve the body, and will use corrective make-up for pretty much everything else.

I was working on this body with Mitch, which was great because he layered the organs inside the cavity while I poured on the 'Shake-N-Bake'. Suturing this time went a little easier, although I did form a small blister on my left index finger...but that just means that I was doing a good job on my suturing. When Mitch was shooting the embalming fluid up into the head I had to clamp the artery behind the eyes shut, but going up the left side there was a small leak so I had to press that down with my finger. ..."Just got my hand in some guy's skull, no big deal...so what did you do today?"

Oh did I mention that this guy was pretty much his own little bloody water park? When Mitch was shooting down the legs there were tiny little streams of embalming fluid shooting up from the muscle tissue right along the ridge of fat, I have never seen anything like it. The fluid retention in the face was a bit much, so Mitch had to use a surgery to suck some of the fluid out but it wasn't working. His alternative was to slice open the eye ball and push the fluid out...and what came along with it was the innards of the eye...this is where I started to dry heave. I was not prepared to slice open a guy's eye tonight. When you squeeze an eye after slicing it open, "eye jelly" (not sure what the medical term is for it) comes oozing out...but this is why we have eye caps kids!

So once we were done, we cleaned up and headed home. Now I get to write my embalming report about today, this will be my 4 out of 25. (I was not very smart and did not document my first few embalming).

A quick shout out to my neighbor Bruce back home in Stevens Point, he has been so supportive of me going to school to become a mortician, he gave me one of his 1938 Cadillac model hearses!

It comes complete with casket, church truck, and opens up! It has such amazing detail I am very thankful to receive such a wonderful, and thoughtful gift. Thank you Bruce!

And so I leave you with this poem by Dylan Thomas

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Until next time. 

Good Intentions

I realized that it has been a while since I have written anything in my blog. To be honest nothing all that interesting has happened...until of course last night.

At around 1:30 am, the fire alarm in our dorm went off. Now I personally hate any loud alarms or sirens because for whatever reason they just freak me the hell out. So waking up to a very loud, very scary fire alarm is pretty much a nightmare for me. After putting on warmer clothes and getting my jacket my room mates and I exited out to the street. Shortly there after two fire trucks came ...I didn't see any smoke, but the stench of diesel fuel nearly gagged me to death. After waiting outside for about twenty minutes we were told to walk across the bridge to Riverview, another dorm, but once we got there, we were told that it was okay to return. The bitching and moaning from everyone was immense. Once we got back to our floor, our RA told us to report any standing water. I promptly through a massive bitch fit, thinking that the sprinklers went off....but thankfully they didn't. I'm not sure what caused the fire alarm to go off, but that is not something that I want to experience again...especially at 1:30 in the morning, in November.

And of course I had to arrive at work earlier than our usual time because we had a morning service at church. Today was a day full of good intentions that promptly blew up in my face, and me trying to be helpful but to no avail. After our morning service at church (which Caleb and I kinda dropped the ball on), we got back in time for the afternoon service at The Home. This service was for the woman that Kevin had to drive 3 hours North to transfer into our care, so of course her family and relatives would be traveling today for the services....I did not know that one of the grandchildren would be coming via taxi from Madison, (this person has some physical handicaps that prevent him from driving, reason why he needed to take a taxi...but man could you imagine how expensive that would get?) The turn out was small but the family was very nice. The services were done around 4, so we were expecting to clean up and head out shortly there after; unfortunately that was not the case. Apparently the taxi guy, even though he knew that he would be driving this person back, was told by his company to drive all the way back to Madison. So what does that mean? That means that at 4:00 pm, when the services were done, we had to call the Madison taxi to come to Milwaukee during rush hour to pick up this individual...he didn't arrive until 6:00 pm.

I would be a lot more upset about this if it wasn't for the fact that this guy was really nice and that I was basically getting paid for two hours to do nothing.

Oh, and I know that I will regret writing this, but I have not done a removal since November 2nd....that is really freaking weird. We have been literally dead at work, and of course now that I writing this and since it is my night on call, we will get something. This is probably the calm before the storm because winter is coming, and with winter it brings death.

Regardless, today will end and tomorrow I will be able to go home at noon!

Until next time.

(Un)Happy Halloween

Where do I begin in today's blog...well perhaps I should say, Happy Halloween because it is Halloween...even though it does not feel remotely like Halloween to me.

As I had mentioned in my previous blog, Jim and Jack both lost their mother last week. Her visitation was this past Monday and it was extraordinary. There were flowers everywhere, and the line was out of the North chapel snaking into the South! I had to stand in line for over 30 minutes just to say goodbye and pay my final respects. I unfortunately had to miss her actual funeral mass because I was in school, but was invited to go to lunch, which was great; love Polish food!

Since the days surrounding the visitation and funeral were fairly quiet , i.e. not a lot of removals; it makes perfect sense that yesterday we were slammed. We had gotten three removals Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, and another two removals during the day on Thursday and one more Thursday night. (I had literally just gotten home and into my PJ's when Kevin called saying we had a house call). So in total we had six that day...six.

Yesterday marked day one on my five day stretch on being on call since I am taking over for Caleb this weekend. And this week marks week two of three that I will be working every. single. fucking. day. To say that I am just a little home sick is an understatement. If there is anything truly difficult about being an apprentice it is the fact that I can not see my mom and friends back home as much as I would like.

Thankfully Caleb will be taking my weekend next week so I can go home for my cousin's baby shower, and I should even be able to leave early on Friday provided the apocalypse doesn't happen...

The nice thing about having so many bodies come in, all the apprentices got an opportunity to get in an embalming. Two out of my 25 needed embalming have now been documented. (I know that I have worked on more than just my two, but have not had the chance to document them and recalling an embalming from a month ago is really hard).

One interesting fact that I learned the other day was that if you own a crypt chances are that you will have to be embalmed. Now in our state of Wisconsin, (or really any state in America for that matter), you are not required by law to be embalmed, however cemeteries may make some stipulations....such as if you have an above ground crypt. The reason for this being is that when the body starts to decompose there are a lot of fluids and gas buildup and will eventually seep from the cracks within the crypt causing a horrible odor and lots of flies to congregate.

So what I have learned this week:
- if someone related to someone who works in the death industry dies; expect a massive turn out
- I do not do well working for three weeks straight not being able to go home and see my mom
- Crypt owners should expect to be embalmed when they die

Until next time...

What Do You Mean It's Not Water Proof?!

Let me start off this post by taking a moment to say that just because I work in the death industry, does not make experiencing a personal death any less hard or tragic. Today my bosses Jim and Jack lost their mother, and even though I never had the chance to meet her personally, my heart is still heavy.

By working in a funeral home, you become family with everyone you work with, just because you see them literally every single day. So when someone goes through a personal tragedy, it effects us all....needless to say, the next few days, weeks,...hell even months, will be hard on us all.


Now to transition from that, to what I did today. After getting back to The Home from working a funeral with Michelle, I was told that I needed to take the remains of Mrs. S to the M.E. and to take Steve with me since he hasn't done this before. Mrs. S was the house call that Kevin and I did, where we found out after the fact that she had fractured her hip 6 months prior.

So Steve and I go to the M.E. and it goes smoothly, and we come back. I am pushing Mrs. S up to the prep room to transfer her back to a table, when David says, "Good, You're back, and you'll be going back to the M.E."

I pause a moment and ask, "Why? I hope I didn't forget anything,...I mean I have Mrs. S right here..." David said, "No...we have a removal from the M.E."
"Oh, can I take Steve with me again? He hasn't done a removal from the M.E. before"
"Sure, just hurry back"

Back to the M.E we went! This time I made sure that I had my apprenticeship license on me so I could sign off on the paperwork. As I have mentioned in previous posts, whenever we go to the M.E. to do a removal we make sure that we always have a Batesville casket liner so we can transfer the body bag onto the gurney. The transfer went as well as could be expected. I signed off on paperwork and we transferred the body onto the gurney, the body was fairly large, but nothing extremely huge. What was large though, was the sack of clothing and amount of money this individual had on them prior to death. Thankfully we got an inventory sheet and were able to head back to The Home.

Once we got back, I made sure to give Dani the small bag of valued goods so that it could be documented and locked away, she then asked who was going to help David with the embalming.

Embalming you say? I eagerly raised my hand, stating that I would love to do this so I could document my first autopsy embalming...plus Steve and Caleb both wanted to go home since they were not on call tonight or this weekend.

Changing into my scrubs I put on the 'Smurf Suit' which looks like this:

The only exception being that I don't wear the face shield since I wear glasses and we are not required to wear a hair net....and also the casket is never in the embalming room...(This photo was taken from Google).

The body was fully opened and the breast plate was taken off so we could get to the bag of organs to treat them. When embalming a body that has been autopsied, we have a special pot, or kettle, that we use to put them in. First we place a red hazardous materials bag inside the kettle, then we place the organ bag. After opening the organ bag we dumped two bottles of chemicals that would help preserve the organs, once done we replace the lid and proceed on with the embalming.

Really wish I could have taken some pictures on what I was doing because the human anatomy is really interesting! With everything removed you can see the spinal column and all the layers of fat, muscle, and skin. Since the body cavity is wide open, it makes finding the arteries for embalming (supposedly) a lot easier. Thankfully I didn't have to find them, instead David went digging (literally) around in search of them. The femoral artery, found in the legs near the groin, were fairly easy to find, but the axillary artery found in the arms near the armpit were very difficult.

While David was running the embalming fluid through the body, I had to take the special autopsy aspirator and suck up all the fluids that were pouring inside of the body cavity. Once we were done running the lines down the legs and down the arms, we had to run the line up the axillary so it would go into the face and head. Now let me remind you that during an autopsy, the skull is opened so the brain can be examined, meaning the head is now just a gaping hole. When we run the line up into the head, there is a place (and forgive me, but I can not remember what it's called) that we must pinch to prevent us getting sprayed with embalming fluid.

Once that was all done, and all the extra liquids were soaked up, I got to stuff the neck hole and work on setting the features...it was really weird to see into the mouth and not see a tongue! This time placing the eye caps proved to be really difficult because the eyeballs were basically caving in. So we finished setting the features and I was (of course) given the task of removing the organs from the kettle and layering them inside the body....joy.

In order to create our 'Satan's lasagna' ...as I so affectionately named it, we first must start off with a layer of Viserac, a powdery substance that looks like saw dust but contains formaldehyde. After a layer has been spread inside the body cavity I then began the disgusting task of bobbing for organs. I took a few deep breaths, and then a few more; psyching myself up for the disgusting adventure that I was currently embarking on.

Reaching inside the bag I began to hum loudly to myself, a tactic that I use to distract myself from something either very painful, or now, very disgusting.  And I must say, it kinda worked. I grabbed a hold of a slippery mass, of what I really can't say because everything was dissected from the autopsy, and then placed it inside the body cavity. When it was layered inside I sprinkled in more Viserac, and then added in more guts. I was up to my elbow in blood and guts, and beginning to worry that there wouldn't be enough room in the cavity for everything. I asked David if the gowns were water proof because I was beginning to feel some wetness creeping up on my forearm...the answer David gave me was less than satisfactory... "WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S NOT WATER PROOF?!" seriously!!! Out of everything that should be water proof...or at least resistant, you'd think that our embalming gown would be!

Now that Satan's lasagna was finished, I was now able to suture up the body. I got to about the navel before David kicked me off of the struggle bus and took over finishing the body. If I ever felt like a failure...it was here. Where as I was struggling just to pierce the skin with the needle, David made it look effortless.

While he was finishing up suturing the body, I began to give everything a thorough cleaning and spray down with bleach. Did you know that when blood is sprayed with bleach it turns a horrible brownish green color? Once we were done (shortly before 6), we both got out of our Smurf outfits so we could change back into our work clothes.

I should say that I was not surprised, but I was, and thoroughly disgusted. After taking off my blue smock, I could see that my right forearm was covered in blood. Oh joy. Oh rapture, Oh happy day!
Needless to say, I gave my hands and forearms a deep clean and took a nice hot shower once I got back to my dorm.

So that is my story for the day. Tragic and bloody. More about the events of the funeral for Mary and the cause of death on Mr. Bloody in the days to come.

Until next time.