THE LAB

Prologue
Oh Lord I call to you; come to me quickly, hear my voice when I cry to you! Let my prayer rise before you as incense; the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. David. Psalm 141.

It was the last evening of Spring in Michigan. A glorious evening. The earth was alive with verdant growth, the smells of roses and clover. A crisp and clear evening with wisps of mist over the Huron River as the sun set. The young nurse and her husband watched the shadows of the evening grow until the sky was brilliant with stars. "I grow tired, my husband," she said. In the predawn light of the first day of summer, she died.

Hospital

"Mr. Roberts," the attending physician asked, "In cases where death occurs outside of the hospital, it is customary to request permission for an autopsy." The words burned in my ears. My beloved had died only hours ago. How dare he? Stunned for a moment, the unreality of this request ringing in my mind, I stood there. The thought of a pathologist ripping my beloved aprat! After a pause, I replied, ". . . if you think you can learn something about this disease and its process from this autopsy, which may help someone else, I give my permission."

School

Medical School. Am I here? What am I doing here? Gross Anatomy. Can I face the reality that now, instead of giving permission to dissect, I am the one ripping someone's beloved apart? What will it be like? It's in the lab just around the corner. Table 23. White male, 83 years old, cause of death: COPD. Just what is COPD anyway? What will he look like? What went through the mind of his family in donating the body? Were they like me? Did they even think that eager young proto-doctors would be examining every piece of his anatomy with knife and pliers and saw? That eager anatomists would insure that they did by exams above and beyond the call of duty?

Lab

The first cut. I can imagine the pain it might have caused, had it been I being cut. We are looking at the axilla. Skinning, carefully lifting the first bit of skin. Fascia...hmmm, oh neat, there's a nerve. Let's follow it and see where it goes? What nerve is it? Beats me! Goes to those muscles there which hook up over there. The nerve runs up to the clavicle. Aha! The long thoracic. Must run under the pectoralis muscles to the serratus anterior, which holds the scapula in place so it won't wing. You mean we have to know all this? By next week? Lost in details.

Head

Reality returns. We about to dissect the head and neck. Until now, we've been working on pieces. The head is covered in bags. We remove them from the mortal remains of this strapping man. I wonder again about him, his family, his mate. Some of my classmates are very sober. Dissecting the head brings home the reality that our cadaver was once very much more than that. He was once a real person, just like they are.

Death

Cause of death: intra-abdominal hemorrhage due to complications of metastatic ovarian cancer. What made it so difficult to see this disease? Why did they miss it? Just how did it spread to the left kidney and intimately involve it? Why not the right kidney too? I see. The ovarian vessels come from the left renal artery . That explains it - maybe. Our cadaver - how did he die? Was he at home too, surrounded by the comfort of his family and home? Did he die in the isolation and sterility of a hospital?

Miracle

As we proceed in the weeks that follow, I come to realize just what a miracle we are. I have been in awe of the qualities of the human body for most of my conscious life, but never realized the profound truth that we are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made. It brings home to me in stark reality that we are created in such a way that everything works together on a level of complexity which makes the world's engineering accomplishments in aggregate seem puny in comparison. For as complex and as miraculous as we are on the outside, climbing mountains, swimming lakes, reading novels, mastering (?) anatomy, the inner structures that make all this possible are even more amazing. The tiniest cells contain a molecule 2 meters long, which for unknown reasons decides to become a skeletal muscle or a parasympathetic pelvic splanchnic nerve to build the structure that makes us us. This is truly an enlightenment.

Reflection

Although I may never have the ability to envision the details of the anatomy that anatomists can, I now know some of the answers to some of the questions, which beget other questions which lead to the search for new answers and maybe just maybe the tremendous sacrifice that the family of our cadaver made in allowing us to study the miracle that he was, will lead to some small enlightenment which will benefit someone else. I am honored and humbled that I have been invited to be a part of this noble process. I pray that I am worthy of the confidence my mentors and teachers have in me.

Epilogue
Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word. Simeon, Luke 2.