Blood and Guts

WARNING: The post is graphic.

It's amazing the things that one can get used to.

In my career as a veterinary student, I've dealt with some pretty nasty things. From explosive, hemorrhagic parvo diarrhea to a one eyed, three legged fetal monster, I've become witness to a number of grotesque scenes. But nothing beats volunteering at the necropsy lab.

Necropsy is the animal equivalent of autopsy. Owners submit their animals for dissection for a number of reasons...curiosity, diagnosis/prevention of a bigger, herd level problem, or as a way to definitively point the finger at whoever may have killed their pet either purposely or inadvertently. Just like with human records, everything is confidential, well-documented and done in a respectful manner. There are tox screens, bacterial cultures and virology panels. Everyone wears the proper protection and undergoes training before wielding any sharp object. But still, there's nothing simple or pretty about cutting up and inspecting the organs of a 2,000lb horse.

A person's first experience "on the floor" of the necropsy lab can be a bit of a shock. Everything is washable, including the keyboards of the computers. There are big, stainless steel tables and tall, tall ceilings which transition into windows that let in a lot of natural light. The floors are slanted downward and lead to grates in the floor which collect all manner of bodily fluids. The ventilation has to be good, or people would probably need to excuse themselves every few minutes due to the condition of some of the bodies. A big table with an assortment of knives and wire cutters line one wall and a band saw is sectioned off behind plastic shower curtains on the other side. Sound gets lost on the floor as the ventilation is always running, so music blares loudly from a big stereo in the corner.

It's actually a bit homey and calming, if you can get over the knives. Everything is very spread out and spacious, and the gear that you wear on the BSL-2 (biosafety level 2) floor is usually loose fitting and cottony. The music makes everything feel very normal, until a giant, dead Holstein cow is slowly brought in through massive steel doors from the holding area. She's hanging from one leg by a chain attached to a moving crane/scale and laid gently across one of the stainless steel tables.

The process of taking apart an animal is very orderly and precise. The front limb is cut and reflected backwards until the shoulder comes free of the body and the leg is bent straight up. In a strange way, the animal looks as if its giving an overextended high five. Then the back leg is reflected in the same way by dislocating the head of the femur. The bone is extremely smooth and glistening white. The thorax and abdomen are both opened next, and oftentimes giant bolt/wire cutters have to be used to open the ribs. It's a sound you won't soon forget.

Then each organ is inspected individually, and the "pluck" is removed. This involves cutting the tongue free of its mouthly attachments and then dissecting the esophagus and trachea out of the neck until you enter the thoracic cavity and come to the lungs and heart. The entire bit- tongue, esophagus and trachea, lungs and heart, all connected- are "plucked" from the animal and laid out. Sound gross? Try opening the entire intestinal tract. I always try to make sure that I'm far away from the table when that has to be done, trying to look busy by scrubbing a knife or picking up a stray bit of adipose tissue from the floor.

Certain organs are "breadloafed," or cut in strips to look throughout the inside for nodules, masses, parasites or any assortment of oddities. The head is removed, cut in half longitudinally by the band saw and the brain extracted. The size of an animal's brain is highly variable, but it can be quite shocking to see just how small Fido's grey matter is.

Lastly, samples are taken from different places and cultures obtained. Everything that could help diagnose the animal's condition is removed, and lesions are described. With bloodied gloves, the pathologists scribble their findings across white lined paper which will later be faxed and transcribed into an online database.

If this all sounds like an episode of Dexter, you're absolutely dead on. Even the knives used by this particular lab are from a knife company called Dexter. Everyone wears coveralls or scrubs and aprons, plastic sleeves, gloves, hair caps and glasses to prevent any splatter from getting in eyes or hair.

You might be thinking, who would ever want to work in such an environment?

Anatomic pathologists are a unique breed of people. They'll discuss their dinner plans while examining the valves of a sectioned heart, comment on the "beauty" of a classic pattern of bronchopneumonia or set things aside "for their collections." Everyone seems to have a favorite organ system. Some people are the "repro" guys, comparing the penises and uterii of lemurs and elephants. Some really like chickens, and will walk around with a leg and show you how pulling the tendon can make the talons open and close. You'll never meet a more interesting or warped group, who are really quite sweet, intelligent and down to earth. They all seem to love to learn and are happy to show you how to remove the capsule from a kidney or the proper way to decapitate a horse.

Sometimes when I'm in the lab, I'll turn around and look back at the clotted mess on the table, the assortment of instruments scattered about and the bits of organs and think, "what the hell am I doing?" Anyone walking in off the street who witnessed such carnage would surely faint. How is it possible that a human can get so used to blood and guts that it barely phases them and seems almost normal? Some pathologists may even touch specimens without gloves. After a while, nothing is gross, nothing is weird, and seeing eyeballs sitting atop stomachs in a pile waiting for disposal would never invoke a gag reflex. If anything, a pathologist would be teased for getting grossed out.

I suppose its the same as men and women who go off to war and barely flinch when bombs and gun shots are heard off in the distance. The brain can adapt to almost anything, just as your nose adapts to a constant assault by becoming slowly desensitized. If my stint at the necropsy lab has taught me anything, its just how amazing and complex the brain and body are. I certainly understand my own anatomy better, and can now almost picture the insides of an animal churning away when I'm looking at it, as if it were made out of glass.

I've even had the experience of biking by roadkill while on my way home and identifying certain crushed bones. No, I don't touch them, but yes, I realize I'm a bit creepy.

But honestly, I do believe that many people have become far too removed from their own anatomy and the inner workings of living beings. The amount that many humans don't know about their own bodies and the food that they eat amazes me. I know I've ranted about this before, but it just boggles my mind. The one thing in your life that you have nearly complete control over is your very own body. And yet, people stuff themselves full of McDonald's and grease and saturate their lungs with smoke and their livers with alcohol (me included) and have no idea how the body responds to injury or maybe even where their liver is. Wouldn't you want to know everything there was to know about your body? How to prevent certain injuries? After all, you live in your bodies for (usually) about 70-80 years. Time for a tune up?

Seeing those animals opened up makes me wonder what my heart looks like, if my lungs are pristine and pink, if my liver has rounded or jagged edges. It makes me want to take better care of my body so that if someone ever opened me up on an autopsy table, they'd say, "Wow, look at that coronary groove! No atherosclerosis to speak of." Once again, I realize I'm creepy, and morbid. But these are own bodies we're talking about here. It's perfectly natural.