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Last night I began reading the Blog Sidekick's present, "The Anatomist" by Bill Hayes. What a great present! It's a pseudo-biography of Henry Gray of "Gray's Anatomy" (the atlas) and a memoir describing the author's time spent auditing an anatomy course at UCSF. While the book can be hooky and vain, especially to the historian of science in me, Hayes' description of anatomy lab is true to life. More than once I glimpsed myself in his pages. There's a funny scene where he describes the students' bewilderment at his presence, the fact that they cannot believe anyone would willingly attend the dissections. I remember how many days the experience felt like punishment - the physicality (on all levels), cognitive dissonance, and pace. Looking back on the experience now, though, I can only think of the privilege and gift, and wish I had paid more attention, tried more. I am certain that a lot of my hesitation had to do with an unconscious recognition that the lab made me physically sick - it was only at the end that I realized that my increasing lung troubles were due to a formalin allergy (the fan above my table was broken) and not under-medication.

The most poignant scenes are when Hayes describes freeing the lungs from the thorax and carrying the excavated heart to the sink:

"With an air of quiet ceremony, Amy places the heart into my gloved hands, and I instinctively draw it to my chest. My own heart instantly speeds up. The lab has never seemed more crowded, the distance to the big stainless steel sink never more vast."

Here's a stanza I wrote the day I removed my (own) heart:

"Funny how memory works - a torrent or none at all

Light as a feather and weighed against time,
Your heart transmitted a good life - you had a good heart -
Which I cradled like a newborn."

Anyway, thanks, Blog Sidekick, for a great gift. I studied harder today because of it.