In the Right Place at the Right Time

If you're ever spent much time with me, you know how...queezy...I become when someone talks about a bodily ailment/surgery/accident...anything with blood. It's not the blood, it's the pain. When I watch a movie with lots of gore, what bothers me I the thought of how that must feel.
I can see severly hurt animals, dead animals, animals in surgery, animals with an eye popped out, and barely wince. My usual saying is "I don't do people"
This is why I never considered being a doctor or a nurse.
It's just not my cup of tea...I can't handle it.

My ped class discussed going to the medical school to see their collection of preserve organs. We were going to have the opportunity to see perserved human lungs, larynx, tongue, ect.
When we arrived there on Tuesday, we were in for a suprise.
(out of a class of approximately 16 seniors and grads, only 6 of us showed up)

The doctor who teaches gross anatomy and who is in charge of the donated bodies, had taken it upon himself to set up the cadaver lab for our viewing. As his class had just finished dissecting the head of the cadaver, he realized it would be the perfect opportunity for us to see the mechanics of the human body intact.

I was not sure if I could handle looking at a deceased human body. I was always greatful that I would never have to something like disect a human body and I give props to those people who can. I was worried that I would have to choose to not participate. I was also the only female and I did not want to be the stereotypical girl who could not handle it.
I took a deep breath and made a decision right there that I would be fine, and I was.

The doctors who were our "guides" were so very happy to be there. The gross anatomy guy loved teaching us and giving us the once in a lifetime opportunity to get up close and personal with the tiny muscles that give us our livelyhood. He told us to put on gloves and pointed out sections to touch.
We felt rings of the esophagus, the arytenoid cartilage, the membrane between the thyroid and cricoid cartilage, the diaphragm, the intercostal muscles, the lungs.....
We were wide eyed and soaking in the knowledge.
We knew what we were looking at, we knew how it worked.
I don't mean to speak for everyone, but I consider this to be one of my top 10 most amazing experiences, and by the look of the guys, they were also enthralled.

The vocal folds are TINY, I mean, duh. The books give you numbers, you try to imagine it inside yourself, but to actually see the crico arytenoids in an intact larynx is pure awe.

Funny, my professor asked me to tell the class about my experience the next day and I declined, but I feel like I could talk about this day for hours.
Just another reason that makes me know I made the right choice to come here.
Everything happens for a reason.

Happy Friday Everyone!

Today started out pretty nice.
I decided to have breakfast with my roommate at Einstein Brothers.
I had a pumpkin bagel with pumpkin smear. The smear was too sweet. 
Then I had class, theory was enjoyable because I understood it. Pedagogy was amusing and lax, it was nice. Then I had a lovely voice lesson, made some progress.
This is when it all went awry....
I missed my bus, had to wait an hour for the next bus.
Finally got home 2 hours later and discovered that I left my keys in the apartment. 
So, here I sit at a bus stop chatting with this old mexican man. He's drinking a beer and telling me about all this history of UTSA. Now I'm learning about the city wide. Fiesta that happens in March. Nice guy.

I'm on my way to Starbucks, need to entertain myself for a couple hours and I have a gift card :-)
When I get there and settle, I'll write my real blog.