I Hate Thursdays

"These lecturers must know how to bend time or something. I swear that the last ten minutes felt like a whole hour. Come - let's grade all them on a scale of 10 by how much they can slow time down. Dr. Yoga from Forensics would be 1, because time goes by pretty quick when he's in class. Dr. Surekha from Physiology would be a 10 - that woman can practically stop time, I tell you."

Me to Shaki, last Thursday

Every Thursday, lectures start at 8.00 am instead of at the usual, comfortable 9.00 am we enjoy on the other weekdays (Fridays don't count because the lunch period starts at 11.30 am instead of 12.30). Plus, there's a Pharmacology SDL presentation class after lunch at 2.00 pm (which I usually have to prepare for by skipping lunch because I'm just too bloody lazy to do it the night before).

Today was particularly sluggish because half the time in the lectures, I have to struggle to stay awake (I spent the other half of the time sleeping). Had a couple of bad dreams the night before. Don't wanna talk about them.

So, I when Shaki told me that SDL was canceled today, I was so overjoyed that I actually spent the whole Pharmacology lecture (which replaced the SDL) paying my full, unwavering attention to Dr. Yeshwanth Rao while he gave a long, meandering talk on immunosuppressive drugs.

But I did skip lunch anyway to grab a short nap. So when I saw this, my stomach growled audibly, beseeching me, its master, to feed it;

No, it wasn't the cow that made me hungry. Look closer;

Nope, it wasn't these two heifers either. Closer still;

There! The Pearly Gates are painted blue and red.

A while ago, Domino's expanded and opened an outlet just two minutes' walk away from my place in Acharya Compound. They must have heard that Sir 'Scarf-a-lot' Kok¹ have just moved into the neighbourhood.

Why are all the powers in the cosmos aligned against my fitness and diet plan?

My resolutions crumbled like a pathetic house of cards (no surprise there) and I bought myself a personal combo; two personal pan pizzas, cheesy garlic bread and a bottle of coke. Why on God's green earth is there two personal pan pizzas in a one-person combo? I didn't dwell long on that particular philosophical question though - I simply can't think straight when I'm starving.

As soon as I stepped into Acharya Compound, guilt gripped me. I suddenly decided that two personal pizzas were simply too many. I spotted Lai Yin and I wondered if she could take one off my hand.

"Hey, Lai..."

"Hey Kok! Autopsy. Over at the mortuary now. Wanna come?" she said, cutting me short.

"I... err..." I began lamely, pointing at the big plastic full of obesity delights I was carrying.

"No time. Leave them in my house first," said Lai Yin.

I obeyed and immediately hopped into an auto with Lai Yin and Nina (haha, going to an autopsy in an auto). As required by my course, I must witness four autopsies at least in my second year in medical school. Most of my batchmates have already seen one while I've seen zilch (they couldn't wake me up on the Saturday they went). Guess, I didn't really have a choice since I was already behind schedule anyway.

The wait.

A whole crowd of people were already there when we arrived.

Only in medical school would you get to see so many happy, excited faces on people who are about to watch fresh corpses being hacked apart. I got a feeling we are all going to hell.

Warning: Potentially disturbing images ahead

Yeap, I'm only showing you the disturbing ones. I'm keeping the really grisly, visceral, insanely gory pictures for myself.

On the table.

The guy we're "doing" this afternoon was a 39 years old, 71 kg², Indian man who was admitted into the hospital 6 days ago. Apparently, he lost control of his motorcycle, hit his head on the asphalt and didn't regain consciousness since. He died in the ICU this morning. Let's call him Joe, okay?

For those that harbour illusions that death is a solemn (and possibly even a beautiful) thing; boy, do I have news for you. Here's basically what Joe went through after he had given up the ghost³;

1. Joe was stripped and photographed.
2. He was cut open from his chin till the root of his penis and opened up like a sports bag.
3. His tongue was cut from the floor of his mouth while his rectum was tied off and was severed from his anus (tied off to prevent his "last meal" from spilling out). Then, all of his innards (between the tongue and the rectum) were hoisted out and dumped at his feet like some macabre ceremonial garland, leaving behind an empty shell.
4. Every organ (heart, liver, lungs, spleen, kidney - everything) was harvested from that 'garland', individually weighed and sliced apart like cuts of meat so the coroner(s) can see how they looked like inside.
5. His scalp was sliced from ear to ear, flipped, and draped over his face like a ski-mask.
6. His skull cap was removed using a saw, a hammer and a chisel.
7. His brain was dislodged and was sliced from several different angles.
8. After the coroner(s) were satisfied, all the bloody, minced visceral organs were stuffed back into Joe's chest and abdominal cavities. Joe's colons are now at where his heart and lungs used to be. And yeah, his diced brain was stuffed into the chest too. The coroner managed to herd everything back in by using Joe's own breastbone like a prod before finally tossing that in as well and sewing him up again. The skull cap was replaced and the scalp was sutured (but now, Joe's head is literally full of air).
9. All this happened in front of a whole class of eager medical students who looked on with morbid fascination.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, death sucks.

Turns out what probably killed Joe was blunt force trauma to the left temporal region of his head. A straight 6cm fracture was discovered there and underneath it was a pretty mushed up temporal lobe of his brain. Both subdural and subarachnoid hemorrhages were evident.

Now listen here;

Joe's did not hit a car or a bus or a truck or anything. There were practically no other injuries elsewhere on his body. He merely fell off his bike and hit his head on the ground. Had he been wearing a helmet that day six days ago, he could have picked himself up, dusted himself off, and rode home.

No amount of gore can disturb me more than that.

The weighing machine used to weigh Joe's organs.

This was a whole different experience compared to the Anatomy dissection classes I had last year. The bodies we used in those have already been pickled for years in formaldehyde and their blood had long been drained. They looked just like - well - really, really dead people.

In an autopsy, the guy lying on the table in front looked no different than if he was just having a peaceful, quiet, afternoon nap - while we play butcher on him. Looking at Joe's face, it really wasn't that hard at all to imagine him opening his eyes, putting on a pair of pants, and walking out of the mortuary whistling the latest Bollywood ditty.

You may find my narrative callous and unfeeling (It's a fucking human being you insensitive bastard!). Trust me when I say that we would have all gone mad if we weren't so hardened up inside⁴. It's necessary for us to lose a bit of humanity for this job. Is it too big a price to pay? Does any of us even realise that we are paying it?

There was also another autopsy (on a suspected case of organophosphate - an insecticide - poisoning) on a 52 years old, 75 kg, Indian male. Boring case. Shan't waste your time talking about that.

I reached home at about three-quarters past five. As expected, my pizzas were already cold and the Coke was warm.

I ate both the pies. I finished the garlic bread as well.

Damn, I was famished.

And I still hate Thursdays.

P.S. If you don't like my dumbed down account, try - kye -'s slightly more technical report on the autopsies. He even covered the organophosphate poisoning guy.


Not quite human anymore,
k0k s3n w4i

¹ Other nicknames include, Fat-ass (Shaki), Mr. You'll-die-of-heart-attack-at-30 (Shaki again), Free Willy (Yeap, same idiot), and You-make-me-look-thinner (ex-girlfriend).
² Ironically, though he was bigger than me, I was the heavier one.
³ Autopsies are done in unnatural deaths. Live well, die old - capiche?
⁴ In fact, the Associate Professor of Forensic Medicine, one Dr. Vikram Palimar (excellent chap, by the way), was talking to the pair of coroners about some restaurant or canteen that one of them wanted to try out. Over Joe's dead body. Literally.