Frack I'm tired

Today was a bitch.

Yesterday was busy, but not bitchy. Mr. GunshotWoundsToTheHeadAndChest looks great. The bullet to the head did little external damage, the hardest part to make look good was the autopsy incision on his head (he has corn rows, and the coroner cut right through them, making it even more crucial that the halves line up properly). the bullets to the arms, however, were a different story. The bullets were small, or at least I assume they were, as the holes in the skin are not large, I can fit my pinky in but not my thumb, so maybe index finger sized, but a couple of the holes were cut into by the ME (medical examiner) to (I assume) retrieve the bullets. The incisions made by the ME are rarely carefully made, and sometimes can cut into a major artery, which makes embalming a bitch, as it did in the right arm of this guy. The brachial artery was severed in this case, so embalming had to be done using an incision at the interior part of the elbow, injecting fluid both toward the hand and toward the body. It worked, and maybe it would have been done that way anyway, the bullet may have done damage like that, but us embalmers like to think that the ME should just be more careful with bodies.

Anyway, back to today. I got a new case. The deceased was in an auto accident, head and body injuries being the COD (cause of death). He looked bad, the skull alone would take a day or so, and after that maybe four hours of restoration (mainly the nose and forehead), but it was do-able, and after speaking with the family I knew that they wanted a viewing, so I was excited. They came in this afternoon and we talked about cremation after the viewing/service, and they were thinking that it would be nice, and then the third sibling came in and he convinced his brother and sister not to view this guy. Total shit, right? Jane came in and saw the deceased and said that he would be too much work anyway (which I doubt she really meant, she was just tired), but I was determined, and it's one of those times that I just wished that I could embalm him without family consent and teach them all a lesson. Argh.