FIRST DISSECTION!!

(I wrote this on Thursday August 13th) So today was my first day dissecting our cadaver and it wasnt as bad as i thought it would be! Group A had already dissected the superficial (outtermost) muscles and we dissected the deeper muscles around the spine. I was totally fine until about 9:30 (we started at 8) when we started dissecting the base of the neck and skull. We had to cut the skull and pull back the skin (with hair on it and all) and at that point i decided to step out and get some air. It was the sight and smell that made me get hot all of a sudden, in the beginning i forced myself to not think about the person but seeing her hair made it very very real. Yesterday in lecture our professor told us that whenever we need to, we should go outside for about 5 minutes until we feel better and then stay outside another 5 after that. With formaldehyde its a pretty intense smell so leaning over the body for 3 hours at a time is not exactly comfortable, not to mention very bad for us. For example, i cant wear contacts because the formaldehyde fumes will start to stick to them and thats no bueno. On a good note, i have decided to run for vice president of our class and will know on Aug 20th if i won the position or not. There are 4 or 5 other people running so we'll see what happens! Tonight is gonna be a fun night of going to dinner with friends and studying. we will see how much studying actually gets done :) i dissection down, a LOT more smelly ones to go!!! :)