Week One: What not to say… and when!

There’s something I’ve realised this week and especially over the weekend it’s become very apparent. I have no filter regarding when it’s okay to talk about my work and when it’s not, but let me elaborate on my week and what I mean by that.
I had a really great first five days at the mortuary, mainly because so much happened that even everyone else said it was a good week to start. There was a post-mortem on someone who was in a state of decomposition, so in other words had been dead for long enough that they had started to visibly decompose before they were found. The mortuary got busier this week and we found ourselves nearing capacity in the main fridges so had to activate one of the other fridges and move people to make room. We also had a post-mortem on someone who was, what is known as, ‘bariatric’ which means they were considered ‘obese’. This posed some complications around how to conduct the different processes that are more straightforward on an average sized person. In addition we had another patient who had suspected tuberculosis so the APT was able to put into action what we had learnt from the conference last week.

Further to all of that, there was a forensic post-mortem taking place on one day which means that we end up with a lot more people in attendance and it’s a much more in depth and lengthier process. All in all a very exciting week and I got to see a lot more than I expected, all while trying to learn the basics of how the deceased are received into the mortuary and ‘booked in’ as well as the other general checks that are part of my job. I’m not going to lie, after all of that and I also began cycling to work this week, I was completely shattered on Friday night, but it was a good and accomplished feeling kind of tired! 

Back to what I was saying at the start, obviously I am not able to talk about the real details with you or anyone, but certain aspects or things I have learnt this week pop randomly in my head and I’ll blurt them out at highly inappropriate times. Or what is inappropriate to other people, but it’s clearly not to me. Like beginning to talk about internal organs when my partner looks at me, points at the Chinese we are eating and says ‘Can you not, please?!’. Or mentioning tuberculosis and what happens to your insides to a friend who looks disgusted and politely asks me to stop. It seems I need to learn to gauge the conversation better, particularly that most people don’t like discussing disgusting topics while they are eating.

I really should have already figured that one out to be fair. 

Questions and comments welcome as per usual, let me know your thoughts! 

MG x