working_with_the_dead jane how could i have forgotten at this point to tell the blue void about my new job? no one in the world could appreciate my recent income maker more than a blatherskite. my official title is tissue recovery assistant. what that means is that when a person dies, if they are an organ/tissue donor, my team goes out & harvests their tissue. this includes heart, eyes, bones, skin, and veins. technically what i am doing is taking the bones that have been "harvested" and wrapping and labeling them so that they can be processed. because i am learning so quickly they are also allowing me to participate in "reconstruction" - that is, the reconstruction of the body in preparation for an open-casket funeral. when we take out bones we leave behind pvc pipes - company standard. in place of tissue it's lap sponges. eyes turn to cotton balls, & the lids are held in place with "eye caps." i sew up the skin after the new materials are placed. i was worried this new experience was going to bother me in some way; i have a tendency to overthink my situation, and, seeing as how this was going to be my first time seeing a dead body, i was concerned that i would be too busy processing my thoughts to do my job. on the contrary - the minute i stepped into the room i was so involved in what i was doing that i simply got the job done. i suppose i imagined the situation repeatedly enough to where when i finally performed, it was no big deal at all. many people have questions about what i'm doing, and most of them are difficult to answer because i have to say something like, well it doesn't bother me. i'm happy to be doing something that makes a difference instead of filing paperwork for people who faxed in an order form. i don't have to answer stupid questions on the phone anymore. the hours are longer but at the end of the day, or night, or whenever i find myself driving back from reno at 4 in the morning, i can feel relief that i'm not working some joe job anymore, you know? i'm doing something i'm actually interested in. & maybe someday i'll work my way up to ocular technician, or as i like to say, eye harvester. 060916 ... pSyche i think that what you're doing is amazing, jane. Maybe creepy, but something that sounds quite fascinating. huh. pvc pipes and cotton balls. never would have guessed... next time i go to a funeral, i'm gonna be thinking about that. 060916 ... superleni i have-a-star 060917 ... ever dumbening maybe you could work for fisher and diaz when you're done. hehe. i need to stumble across a randomly cool job like this. 060917 ... replicant bird "those are my eyes...freezing" 060918 ... stork daddy at least there's nothing to dislike about the people you work with. that's more than i can say. 060919 ... Myrrdin LOL 060919 ... jane i had a difficult case the other day. was the first time i was working with a female donor. not young or anything, i dont know. drove to the funeral home in tahoe with the other two team members. by now i know it's better to not pay attention to the names anymore, because it gives the donor some personality. avoid personality at all costs. not so with this one. they wheeled her in & uncovered her, & i saw her dyed red hair, her painted red fingernails, and blue toenail polish. she had on blue toenail polish. the case was relatively simple, not a lot actually for me to do, & we finished pretty quickly. drove back, did the paperwork, centrifuged the blood.. blah blah blah. get back home at about 1am, decided to read the thick book i've been working on. at 3 or 3:30 i decided it was about time for bed. as soon as i closed the book & turned out the light, all i could think about was this woman picking out her nail polish, or getting a pedicure with her daughter who was in town for her birthday or something. i started to cry, & then to sob, & i started saying, forgive me, forgive me, i didn't want to. i didnt' want to. i cried myself to sleep & the next morning e called me & asked how i was & i said, fine, i had pleasant dreams & smiled. dreams about mountains & skies & stars. he asked how the case was & i told him everything & cried again - she had blue toenails - on an afternote, i almost went out on a case today for a 15 year old female. lord knows i couldn't have felt ok about that 061016 what's it to you? who go blather from