Cadaver Lab as Playground?YES, and More
Cadaver Lab as Playground?
YES, and More
Hello Playground People!
We are back on our regular schedule this week.
As some of you know, I was in Colorado participating in a Cadaver Lab over the past week.
I have done this before, and will do so again, as the human body is so complex, one can never see everything, or know everything. We can just explore what is in front of us in the present moment and know that we are only seeing from the vantage point of that particular moment and everything that has conditioned it. A tiny experience of the elephant, and much of it conditioned by who we are in that moment.
This lab was different for me as it involved fixed (or embalmed) cadavers vs unfixed (un-embalmed) cadavers.
My previous experience of participation in a dissection was on unfixed cadavers. That was smelly, messy, and we had to work quickly, as the forms were basically decomposing and could literally fall apart as you take them a part.
The formaldehyde and other chemicals used to treat a fixed cadaver make the tissue firmer, and smell like chemicals (not pleasant but preferable to the alternative) vs biological material, and the process (though still wet and messy) is significantly less so.
Our experience was led by Jules Mitchell (who many of you know as she has presented on The Playground) and two incredible master dissectors who work at the Laboratory for Anatomical Research in Colorado Springs, Colorado. You can look them up and do this yourself if you are curious. It is a fantastic voyage into the "matter" of who we are. It will change you. It is worth it.
Jules divided the three days into these themes:
Day 1: Cooperation
Day 2: Uncover
Day 3: The Playground (yes, inspired by yours truly!)
Cooporation
We had two cadavers and did the dissections ourselves (that was the case with my previous full lab experience) and were assisted by the Lab's master dissectors, Madhav and Carla.
There is a lot of cooperation that needs to occur. You are handling very sharp instruments, and with up to ten people around each cadaver, things can happen. It was essential to drill into this theme. And different people have different amounts of experience in a lab. For several, this was their first cadaver lab. Some want to dive in there and do as much as they can. Others prefer to observe and play when they feel ready, and gradually.
We also had to take care with the remains of the gift that the once living generous humans donated so that we could learn. Every part of them, down to the little, tiny bits is kept, to be returned to the family.
We named our cadavers Freddie and Dottie. We knew that Dottie had died from lung cancer. She way 57. Freddie's cause of death was listed as "to be determined." He was 62.
Uncover
As we dive deeper into the body, we uncover things. Bodies tell a story, they tell multiple stories, but we are now the story tellers/interpreters. And one thing is for sure. We are all guessing, we are making things up, we are creating a narrative that probably has more to do with us and our life experiences that the once lived experience of the body and being which inhabited the remains of the form before us.
We might think we know...but do we?
I can only write so much here but let me say this: So much of what we have been told about our actual structure is fiction.
I think everyone in the lab had this takeaway--even those who have done it multiple times. Since I have done a lab before, I already knew how robust the sacrum is. You will have far less (if any at all) worries about the stability of your SI joint after cadaver lab!!! And your lumbar spine? Those discs are tough.
Nothing is straight or symmetrical. Entwined, interwoven, one thing becoming another, and it is often impossible to see where one thing ends and another begins...You see a change, but you (the dissector) ultimately decide (with your hands or scalpel) where one thing becomes "another."
The complexity of the human body is mind boggling. And the models we use to represent this complexity have been so over simplified that they feel like cartoons compared to the real thing.
My own projects involved dissecting a knee, a hip, removing the glute max (not easy), and removing the diaphragm and surrounding fascia while trying to keep it intact. I removed a heart and lungs and dissected them (along with others). We took apart shoulders, and feet, and hands...and viscera. The liver is a like a character from then Marvel Comics Universe.
In fact...you are like a character from the Marvel Universe! So am I. We all are. And then we are so much more.
And though we be but marvels, we are not immortal, and one of the biggest gifts of Cadaver Lab is the opportunity to sense, touch, and enter into the material elements of our mortality in ways that most people never have the opportunity to do.
The Playground
I really appreciated how Jules facilitated an open, yet contained, learning environment. It was refreshing to feel like we were all learning together, with cooperation, curiosity, and awe. As we have learned from Professor Andrew Huberman, PLAY is the best portal for adaptive neuroplasticity regardless of age. This lab was an example of play at it best. Focused, yet low stakes enough to try things, to exercise different thoughts, options, ways of thinking, doing, and perceiving.
The lab can bring up emotion. It can be funny. It can be extraordinarily playful. We were all like kids (and sounded like kids!) in the lab. Even the master dissectors are making all the sounds you would expect from a 10 year old if they were in the lab.
There is a lot of humor. SO MUCH HUMOR. It helps! Humans are amazing. I keep coming back to this.
We find humor, play, pathos, beauty, connection, and love in the oddest of circumstances. THAT is one of reasons we are so resilient.
There was also so much awe and respect. Every day, multiple times a day, we would feel deeply and express gratitude (and dare I say love) for the gift given by our donors.
I am happy to share more. And please write if you have any questions about doing a lab. I highly recommend it.
We will be playing with our amazingly robust human form, and more fascinatingly with that which makes it so alive and resilient.