How do you feel about death and dead bodies?

I've spent a huge portion of my summer thus far hanging out in an anatomy lab with 15 cadavers (and about 80 other living humans). The experience has brought out a lot of thoughts regarding death and dead bodies, especially what I would like done with my own body when I pass.

The average age of our cadavers is about 70 years old. Death at that age, while certainly sad, is not unexpected. Our youngest cadaver was 46 at death and died of complications due to pneumonia. Most of the other body donors died of complications due to aging - respiratory failure (in the case of my group's cadaver), failure to thrive, complications due to a hip fracture, etc. Some of them likely spent quite a bit of time in the hospital before their final passing, but none died due to any significant trauma or violence.

I used to think I'd want to get cremated when I die, but now I want to donate my body to science once I reach an age where my organs are less likely to be useful (I am a registered organ donor). The gift given by these donors is truly remarkable - we have the cadavers for our summer, knowing only their ages and cause of death, and they are the source of priceless education for my future career as a physical therapist. Really seeing, touching, manipulating, and dissecting the muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, blood vessels, and bones I'll need to be able to visualize in a live patient.. the experience truly is priceless. We keep all tissue removed from the cadavers in a bin associated with their number, and most of them will be cremated at the end of our classes this summer and their ashes returned to their families. Two of our 15 cadavers had families who elected not to receive their ashes, so the university will keep them and use them to educate students for at least the next decade.

I must say that this class is not my first experience seeing a dead body, though it is the most up-close-and-personal. Seeing my father at his visitation was really difficult, and brings to mind some of the hangups we've had with this dissection: we keep our cadaver's face covered at all times. All of the groups do, really. It was really difficult to make those first cuts on our very first day, and dissecting hands is really difficult - if you think about it, our hands and our faces are what really differentiate us from other species, so stopping to consider the experience as a whole and the subject as a person made parts of the dissection more difficult to continue. We still haven't dissected the face - we will have to do some work on his jaw - and I'm honestly a little nervous about that coming.

There are some people who are extremely comfortable with death and dead bodies - where do you put yourself on the scale? Have you seen or touched a dead body before? Have you considered what you want done with your own body when you die?

I intend this thread to be about human death - I have plenty more experience I could share when it comes to animals, but that's not what I'm curious about in this writing.

 

I have no fear of death, but truly hope it will not happen until my children are all grown. The thought of them losing their father at a young age (which I know happens every day to children, especially in third world countries) is not a nice one.

 

It may sound weird, but while I don't necessarily have a problem with death, I do have a fear of losing my conscious identity. I guess it is a part of what makes religion so popular and comforting, even though I don't subscribe to it myself. As for dead bodies, I only have a problem with what we do in our society with them, namely the embalming and "displaying." I have yet to see a processed corpse that looked "natural" or "peaceful," and I would hope that my family doesn't waste good money on putting what is no longer me "to rest." Cremate me or sell my body to science, I'm pretty sure I'm no longer gonna have any use for it.

As far as death as a general concept, I think we fight too hard against it, which has led to a lower quality of life overall for everyone. Its another interesting aspect of religion that most of them claim a better place is waiting for followers in the afterlife. And while a vast majority of the world's population claims some form of religious or spiritual inclination, people in most cultures will do anything possible, natural or otherwise, to stave off death as long as they can. I think that speaks much louder to our comfort level with death and dying than any book or ceremony on the subject.

Anywho, I've started to ramble, but I've had hours long conversations about death and our feelings and reactions towards it, so it is a topic that really interests me.

 

I'm not afraid, repulsed, or worried about my own death. I worry about my loved ones in regards to the pain they may suffer.
S and I have our living wills completed already and each knows that there will be no lingering for the other. We have a pull-the-plug pact, in essence. I work with peopel that are in the dying process. I've been there when one died, present within moments of a few, and at over 80 funerals. It just really doesn't phase me any more. I get more distressed by those who are on life support and their family cannot let go. Bodies don't feel, look, or smell the same after just a few moments after death. And in seeing those changes as they happen, I know I'd like to be cremated and flung out into nothingness. I hope that the people that love me won't have to see the color changes, or feel the texure of my skin change after I die. It's when the eyes stay open that people get uncomfortable. I've kissed, 'em goodbye, hugged 'em, held 'em, helped bathe or move them. Done foot prints, hand prints, molds, hair stying, you name it. It's just another part of humanity to me.

 

Death is not a stranger to me.
They have come to me dead, I have found them dead and I have watched their last breaths from natural causes as well as from trauma.
Me and my co-workers always take care to make them as presentable as possible for the family.
Dead bodies don't faze me. They are just empty vessels at that point.
When its my time, let the surgeons take and use whatever they can. I won't be needing it anymore. Cremate the rest. The family can decide if they want to keep the ashes or scatter them. Either is fine with me.

 

No fear of death or dead bodies. Not that I've experienced a lot of death or dead bodies. It's just not something that bothers me. I would be equally fascinated by dissecting and looking at the inner workings of a human body though.

 

Pretty desensitized. In a previous life being called to the scene of a dead body was not an unusual day. I've spent time actively looking for them underwater, found some, didn't find others. I remember getting a call to the beach early one morning. A tourists walking her dog found a floater washed up on the beach. Well, pieces of a floater anyway. I was training a new guy, just graduated from George Fox University. We get there and of course there's no sign of the head, most of one leg is missing and it's bloated and smells like, well, like a dead body. No way to tell what sex it was simply too tore up and bloated. I looked at my trainee and he looked like he was going to toss his cookies. Something he did a few minutes later when my supervisor showed up eating an egg McMuffin.

 

I don't have a fear of dying - but I fear the sorrow it will cause my children, wife, parents and friends. I'm "registered" as an organ donor (no proper registry in Norway other than signed will and a sticker on my drivers license) as I believe I can be more helpful to others and it can ease the pain of my loved ones that I'm giving the gift of a better life to someone else.

I've seen several dead people - all relatives in their 70's - both at the funerals and in the hospital just hours later. It wasn't weird of uncomfortable - it reminded me of a houe where the people have moved out and turned of the lights. There where no traces of the wonderful personality that once thrived inside these..vessels..

 

Usually when I see a corpse I begin whimpering and try to curl up into a fetal position, clawing at the nearest person's legs to "take it away, take it away!"

Subsequently, I've been excluded from the last eight family funerals.

As far as my own demise goes, I want to be stuffed with crabmeat and floated out to sea to be devoured by a school of coelcanths. If that's too elaborate, my second choice is to dragged behind a pickup truck at 90 miles an hour until the pieces go flying everywhere. If my head survives, that should be given to the nearest schoolyard for the kids to use as a kickball. My point is, I guarantee I won't complain whatsoever.

 

Death is creepy. No question. That said, I am okay with it once I've pushed the knee jerk revulsion down.

Back in high school I worked in housekeeping at a hospital and one of the tasks I had was cleaning the morgue. I came into contact with a number of dead bodies. Being in there alone was spooky but I recognized it was all in my head. It wasn't much more different than being in the basement with the lights off... it's the ghosts and monsters lurking just beyond the pool of light that are the scariest (i.e. I have an overactive imagination).

I don't currently have a donor card as there isn't anything like that here. Maybe they have it on their driver's license but as I don't have one...

In the end, a dead body is just meat. I hope that my family will ensure that my organs are donated.

 

I am an organ donor and I don't devote a lot of thought to my own death. What bothers me most is the thought of leaving my kids behind. I wouldn't want them to go through that. But as long as my body goes to good use, I am not concerned about anything that happens to it after I die...my kids might feel differently. I hope they would be able to let me go.

Speaking of that, I have been thinking more lately of my parents dying. They are both getting older, going through health problems and both of my birth parents are experiencing subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) signs of mental...deterioration. Nothing drastic, but enough to have made me start confronting that they are getting "old" and the eventuality of their death. Something I've never thought much about before...cause I just don't think about those things much.

Of course, the thought of my children dying. It's my greatest, paralyzing, mind-stopping fear. Luckily, I don't think much about that, either.

As for dead bodies, I have not been around a lot of them. Just family. But they don't bother me and I am not squeamish about what goes on beneath our skin. I find it kind of fascinating actually. I remember when my paternal grandfather died. He had been sick with cancer for eight years while it spread throughout his body. Eventually he killed himself, rather than go through yet another surgery and drug therapy regimen. I guess I was about 10 or 11 years old. I know it sounds weird, but I was kind of fascinated by his body at the viewing. He looked so...good...because, you know, he had been sick for so long and I couldn't remember a time when he didn't look sick. But lying there he looked healthy and happy. I stood there by the coffin for a long time with my hand on top of his. It made me feel better. I guess it is pretty weird. I haven't thought about that in a long time.

 

How odd, I have never been to an open coffin service where the person looked good. At my grandmother's funeral I serious thought they'd made a mistake and it was someone else in the coffin. My father recently passed. I hadn't been around much and only seen him briefly over the past 10-15 yrs. His service was closed casket but they asked if I wanted a private viewing. I really wanted the option of saying good-bye privately so I accepted. He looked awful. A shell of the man I once knew.

 

We had a closed casket for my Dad but I had a look at him when they brought the body to the mortuary. Inanimate meat never looks like the person they were. I think our expectations are shaped by seeing "dead bodies" on television. Dead bodies in real life don't look like an actor holding their breath.

 

OT Have never thought of the age of a donor. Is there an age when organ donations are no longer accepted? Would make sense.

Sorry form the thread jack........

Back on topic, death bothers me less as I age. Probably seeing older relatives pass on, and it was time form them. My father in law passed away four years ago after a long bout with cancer. There wasn't much left of him. The funeral home did a remarkable job in making him presentable. That really is an art.

 

Maybe it completely depends on the quality of the preparation? Those are the only open casket funerals I've been to where I was close enough to get a good look in the coffin.

I know seeing someone die and seeing a dead body shortly after death are completely different then seeing them in the autopsy, morgue or in the coffin.

Looking for and then finding a dead body in the cold murky waters in the Pacific Northwest is an unsettling experience and takes a while to get use to, not sure you ever do completely. Often you search solely by touch and can only see an arms length. Right before I retired we had a big case where a man killed his wife and three children, tossed them all in two bodies of water. Big cases like that the FBI comes in and takes over. Local guys like me are left to make fast food and coffee runs or run down leads that have very little chance of production. They sent myself and another, much younger, Sheriffs Dive Team member to search an area of river that had little to no chance of being the dump site. I remember getting in my dry suit and setting up my gear when my dive partner starting to complain about being sent "to look for nothing." I thought to myself not finding a dead kids body today will not ruin my day in anyway.

In an odd side note the man who committed those murders left Oregon and turned up in Cancun, just a few hours from where I live now. When they found him, another tourist turned him in to the FBI, I had already took a lease out on a house here. Weird, just weird.

 

My father didn't look "right" at his viewing (he was later cremated, but some friends of the family pushed us to have a viewing since his passing was so sudden). Like our cadavers before we started to dissect - just lifeless. The hands and face are very human and personal, and bring up a lot of thoughts in terms of who they were, what their lives were like, etc.. thoughts that, while healthy, aren't productive in an anatomy lab when we're there to learn the nitty gritty.

I had a lot of trouble touching my father in his casket. He was so.. cold. It bothers me a lot to remember it. Freaked my mom and my sister out a lot at the time, too. That was a horribly emotional day.

As for age cutoffs for organ donation.. I don't know of any formal cutoffs, but I imagine that once I reach my 50s, especially, my organs are not going to be in the shape they are now. It is only at that age that I would start making arrangements with a specific college for donating my body (or if I developed a disease or condition that would make my organs unlikely to be accepted for donation). Otherwise, I'd expect to just be an organ donor and then get cremated. I don't know.. maybe I should make arrangements in the near future, with body donation as a "plan b" in the case of my organs not being useful.

 

That might be my experience were it to happen now, at my age. But as a child, I had never seen my grandfather look anything other than haggard and unkempt and pale. And miserable. He was very unhappy, it was veritably coming out of his pores. He wasn't a particularly charming person even before he became ill, at least that's what I've been told. The experience I related was very much contingent on my age, I think.

 

You know, I have a slight obsession with death, it may be curiousity more than anything. Especially when I was younger, I lacked the maturity to deal with death. I was afraid of it, I accept death for what it is... a necessity of life. I personally believe that I want people to celebrate my death, and not morn who I am, I find great sadness when someone dies but I am happy for having to spend whatever time I did with them. The meaning I give to life is to contribute or improve it for the people around me....

I am an organ donor.... I love science and I know it'll be of good use to someone who wants to learn.... so naturally donating in the name of science appeals to me.

 

Delicious.

I usually have to take like 2-3 seconds with blood, serious injuries or dead bodies to sort of switch-off my sympathy or whatever it is internally that has a reaction to that stuff.