My First Time

And it was horrible. I still can't believe that I did what I did. I just cannot look at my hands in the same way again. Yesterday, we were supposed to feel the cadaver, as our batch teacher showed us, the anterior-superior iliac crest and spine and the pubic symphysis. I did it without really wanting to do it. Not the symphysis, though, and you'd understand why.
But today was probably the worst experience ever. I have felt puky in an environment of hospitals only twice. The first, about 3 yrs back, when I accompanied my mom to see a patient who had leprosy. So one of his wounds, on the leg, had become gangrenous and when my mom asked the relatives to remove the bandages, the entire room was filled with a yucky smell for an hour. I sat with a handky over my mouth all throughout, till my mom was done. The second time was today.
No handkerchiefs, no napkins. All you have is the gloves in your hand, the instruments in a box next to you, and the body in front of you. It took a lot of will power to start off, considering that I had decided not to touch the body at all. But you don't want to be left out of things, do you?? SO I actually did the dissection of the lower limb, till I couldn't bear the smell at all. Yeah, our dissection was great, everybody wondered and cursed their luck for having got fat cadavers to cut, and we had all the students on the tables around us coming and saying, "Wonderful...lucky you!", but the experience of smelling it all is too much. I had a frown on my face all throughout the dissection and then the lecture after that, because I kept feeling the smell around me. I even came and had a bath at home, because I couldn't bear it all....
Well, one things decided: I hate dissection and I never want to take up surgery as my branch of choice, however good I may be in it. Period.