The kinda gross thread

[Aggie_Ama]

I usually do not gross out at other's blood. DH had a pretty bad wreck a few weeks ago, while I was cleaning a nasty puncture that just didn't want to stop bleeding all I could think was "this is a pretty cool injury". I could not pack his open wound after his apendectomy got infected because he wrenched and screamed. My own blood in anything more than a minor cut will make me panic though.

At first Maggie's blood didn't gross me out then I got slightly queasy and now I have a maroon koozy.

I am not sure I could do human cadavers. My college roommate is a doctor, she was so excited about it in med school she called me "WE GOT OUR BODIES TODAY!!!" Different strokes.

[OakLeaf]

I can't watch my blood getting drawn, but blood generally doesn't bother me. Although I have to admit that this fall when I cut the tip of my thumb nearly off at the dinner table, ten minutes later after I'd gotten the bleeding more or less under control, I really didn't have much appetite left for the rest of my plate.

[SlowButSteady]

Blood doesn't usually bother me but whenever my son had a nosebleed, I'd freak out. I also get very, very anxious about the finger prick blood tests but not about needles in veins, scalpels, etc.

[Tuckervill]

When I was about 6 months pregnant with my last child, my job entailed training medical people on how to use dictation equipment. One of my last assignments was in the pathology cutting room of a major public trauma center. While I tried to remember all of the specimens represented a human who was having a rough go of it, I will forever be scarred by the sight of one man's entire ear and all the innards that accompany it. That, and the fluid filled fallopian tube 10 times its normal size that exploded when the technician touched it. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. (Okay, my keyboard actually stuck when I pressed e and w.)

Karen

[TsPoet]

We shared a walk-in freezer with an orthopedic lab when I was in Grad school. I was the only person in our group that was willing to go in the freezer, so I was often the errand girl. I never had any trouble with the human limbs and disarticulated torsos. Until one day I walked in and a woman's leg was exposed with perfectly manicured and beautifully polished toenails.
I still get upset when I think about that. No idea why that bothered me, so much more. Why was displaced beauty more gross than the stark reality?

[Biciclista]

When I was 12, a friend of the family was an EMT and she regaled us with stories of car wrecks and such. The stories she painted onto my brain were so graphic, I can still summon them up even though I personally have never witnessed a really bad car accident.
Also disturbing to me was that she said people's shoes always come off in car accidents. so whenever i saw shoes in the road...

[OakLeaf]

I went to a spinal anatomy seminar at a convention a few years ago. The presenter had cadaver parts, displayed on an overhead projector. I learned WAY more than I ever could from photos and drawings. Still, I was clear at the back of the big "ballroom," and that was as close as I wanted to be to that stuff.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I still get upset when I think about that. No idea why that bothered me, so much more. Why was displaced beauty more gross than the stark reality?

Because the carefully painted toenails reminded you that the abstract 'piece of meat in a freezer' had only recently been a feeling and cared for part of someone. But you probably know that already.

I had to get used to a lot of 'gross' manifestations of death and decay during my mother's dying process two and a half years ago. I now push those images out of my mind and try to remember her as the beautiful woman she was.

On a different note...I recently started up a worm composting bin in a corner of my kitchen, and I had been a tiny bit apprehensive about handling a pile of squirming worms in my hands. I have enthusiastically raised snakes, tarantulas, and various creepy-crawlies in my day, but a solid mass of worms were something new to me.
Not that I 'had' to hold them in my hands, but I felt if I were going to raise worms then I should not be afraid to get my hands right into them. I was pleasantly surprised when the 1000 worms arrived and I dumped them on the table- I quickly got over any squeamishness and in fact they felt kind of pleasant, all wriggly slowly as a mass in my hands. Not slimy or gross, more smooth and cool feeling.

[Biciclista]

Because the carefully painted toenails reminded you that the abstract 'piece of meat in a freezer' had only recently been a feeling and cared for part of someone. But you probably know that already.

I had to get used to a lot of 'gross' manifestations of death and decay during my mother's dying process two and a half years ago. I now push those images out of my mind and try to remember her as the beautiful woman she was.

On a different note...I recently started up a worm composting bin in a corner of my kitchen, and I had been a tiny bit apprehensive about handling a pile of squirming worms in my hands. I have enthusiastically raised snakes, tarantulas, and various creepy-crawlies in my day, but a solid mass of worms were something new to me.
Not that I 'had' to hold them in my hands, but I felt if I were going to raise worms then I should not be afraid to get my hands right into them. I was pleasantly surprised when the 1000 worms arrived and I dumped them on the table- I quickly got over any squeamishness and in fact they felt kind of pleasant, all wriggly slowly as a mass in my hands. Not slimy or gross, more smooth and cool feeling.

eewww~~!!!