The Brain Bucket

So today is my anatomy lab which I usually love...but today was a little different. We started muscles last week (really really cool) and all week I have known that today I would have to go into the cadaver lab. I wasn't really worried about it because it takes a lot to make me sick. Also it is a huge privilege to have a cadaver on campus and be able to study it at such a lower level class...we count ourselves lucky. So we finish our quiz and Brother Frederickson (who only graduated a few months ago and is headed to med school next fall) tells us all to "glove up". And suddenly my throat feels like I shoved a football down it. I was so nervous!! He starts showing us the leg muscles and I was ok at this point because the head was covered and the muscles are SO interesting! So we go through all the muscles in the lower extremities..still doing fine if I breathe through my mouth...and then someone wants to see the heart and lungs. That was really cool too and the head was still covered I just had to think..it's not a human..it's not a human..and I was fine.

And then it happened. The know-it-all-have-to-be-the-top-of-the-class-or-I-have-failed asks to see a brain. So Bro Fred, or Logan as we all like to refer to him, walks over to the cabinet and pulls out "The Brain Bucket" which is exactly what you think it is. Suddenly my airway is totally constricted..the smell coming from this bucket could knock you out from a mile away..and I somehow got pushed to the front of the class. I am a mere two feet away from the bucket. I didn't want to be the wimpy kid who has to run out of the class because she can't stomach the cadavers..but I also didn't want to be the kid who pukes all over the teacher. So I just tried really hard to not breath and focus on what he was teaching us.

And then he pulls out a brain. With the eyeballs still attached. And that's when I lost the ability to stand. The T.A. basically had to carry me out into the hall. I had to get outside to some fresh air and luckily I didn't lose my breakfast all over the bad carpet.

So I guess you could say it's been a rough day.