A case of the strange Mondays

Today I had PLANNED to spend the entire day on the electron microscope in our lab collecting stereology pictures

Best laid plans.

I got to work around my usual time (10ish), all set to image all day.  

We had a brain.  But the donor was at the funeral home, and they hadn't removed the brain yet.  And they needed our autopsy saw to do so.  The autopsy saw was at the Alabama Organ Center, because they borrowed it from us at some point.

Joy and I walked to the organ center and got the saw.  While we were there we saw live donated kidneys in a pod, functioning, being kept alive--it was super cool.

Then we drove to the funeral home with the saw.  The body was all laid out, and they were in the process of taking all the donated tissue.  This is a gentle way to say that I witnessed a body dismemberment.  They finally got to the brain, removed it, and then didn't give us our saw back.  

We had to wait until the torso was flipped over and they had removed the spine.  I'd be lying if I didn't say this was all pretty cool to see.  You just have to remember it's tissue and not a person (anymore).  Which is hard because of the face and all.  But I handled it surprisingly well.  It was very interesting.  And what a job the morticians have, man, it requires some muscle.

So then Joy and I left with the brain, and Joy watched as Lesley and I dissected.  Then I went for lunch.  At this point I'm all set to get on the scope after lunch.  

But I just received an email letting me know my teaching specimens have arrived.  So I'm headed across campus with a cart to pick up some frogs, sheep hearts, sheep brains, and fetal pigs.

And that, my friends, has been my Monday as of 1:50 p.m.

UPDATE:  My order was totally FUBAR'ed by someone at UAB, so now instead of one pail of 10 sheep hearts, I have 10 pails of 10 sheep hearts.  And no frogs.  Awesome.