Coffin Talk

[rum_runner69]

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[Embalm_u2]

paging doc j paging doc j....we need you in tales from the ct crypt stat!

[grasshopper]

i hopped over as fast as i could to be the bearer of bad news....

HEAR YE HEAR YE!.... the good doctor is have problems with his pc.... so post will wait until saturday.
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~Revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude ~ Charles Caleb Colton

[Doc-J]

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday January 31-February 3, 2010 in the Life of Doc J and Doc J’s Believe It or Not:

　

Sorry gang about not posting. For a couple of days I had a heating issue at home and would leave the funeral home and go home to try to fix it, which I did for now anyway. Tuesday and Wednesday I got stuck at the funeral home later than intended and when I could free I went home instead of posting. My bad.

Going back to this past Sunday we had an interesting case, from an embalming standpoint anyway. We received a call on a lady whom we had been expecting. The only unique aspect was the large tumor than ran along her right lower jaw, down her neck where it had broken to the surface and moving on down into the Sternocleidomastoid muscle where it was wrapped around the carotid and jugular.

I called Grasshopper in with the intention of having her embalm while I handled the family. I ended up going more hands on because of the difficulty in raising vessels. The deceased had a detailed pre-arrangement and I was able to arrange the funeral pretty quickly and then I went into the o.r. to assist Grasshopper. When I walked in, she had the deceased positioned properly and the preliminary disinfection done. One thing that had thrown her off was the fact that the mouth did not have to be set by us. She has had to use needle injectors on every body she has been involved with. I explained the “natural” mouth closure to her basically consisting of leaving the jaw alone and then making sure the lips meet properly.

She then started attempting to raise the vessel. It did not take long for me to realize that the tumor was making this very difficult. I then took over and I have to admit, it was a tough raise. The tissue was very tough and the tumor had wrapped around the vessels, distorting the linear guides. In other words, the vessels had been moved by the tumor and required a good bit more effort in locating. They were also damaged and very fragile and we came close to breaking the carotid.

Just before she had started I had made the comment that we might start at the femoral. I wish I had followed my gut but we got the vessels and the injection actually went pretty routine after that. I did have to raise the right axillary artery and injecting it. We used a strong solution of two gallons of water to three 16 ounce bottles of Purple Jesus, increasing in strength as injected, and 16 ounces of Metaflow. The deceased was very emaciated but my pre-embalming analysis showed two major concerns, namely the cancer and the effects of nitrogenous waste, and a delayed burial, so I wanted a good strong solution.

After the injection and aspiration, I excised the tumor at the point it had burst through the skin and applied a pack of Basic Dryene to the area.

The end results were excellent and the family was extremely pleased with her appearance.

　

Monday I spent literally almost all day on the phone talking to various insurance companies regarding the status of claims. This can be a tedious process. One insurance company had me on hold for almost an hour before I even got anyone on the phone.

Tuesday, I spent most of the time getting the above mentioned deceased ready for viewing and I already mentioned the results and the families reaction.

　

Wednesday, I handled the funeral for the above mentioned deceased and it went very well. The family was pleased with the whole process.

I’m off today and tomorrow. I’m had my parents house in Georgia which is the only way I have access to a computer to update this blog.

I go on call Friday evening and remain so all weekend, so I will post again Saturday.

　

　

Doc J’s Believe It or Not:

　

The other day I saw an online news blurb about a funeral home in New Mexico and a funeral home in Utah being sued by a family. Anytime a lay person tries to write a story about some funeral home mistake, the story never comes out accurate. The situation involved a woman killed in a wreck in Utah and shipped back to New Mexico for services. Long story short, the family ended up being handed a bag that was supposed to contain personal effects but in reality contained the deceased’s brain.

The reason I say this story is not accurate was the fact it mentioned that the funeral home in Utah removed her brain and put it in a bag and implied this is a common practice. I don’t know of any funeral home that removes brains. That would have been done during an autopsy. The trauma that she might have had could have caused her cranium to open, exposing the brain and some might have leaked out. My technique for handling this is to place the exposed brain back into the cranium, use Dryene to dry and cauterize and do the needed restoration. I would never place the brains into a bag and place them in the casket.

The New Mexico funeral home apparently opened the foot end of the casket to retrieve the personal effects sent with the body and gave the bag to the family. The bag that apparently contained the brain. The funeral homes are blaming each other and the beat goes on.

　

My whole point in mentioning that story was to tie in a practice that some funeral homes engage in. I have never worked for a funeral home that does this and never will but there are funeral homes that do not sew up the viscera bag from autopsies into the thoracic cavity, but place the viscera bag into the foot end of the casket and bury it.

There have been numerous incidents in the past where the family was given the viscera bag by mistake, usually by a non-licensed employee that confused it for personal effects. I wonder if the family from the above story was given a full viscera bag instead of a bag just containing the brain. That is what I mean about the story not being accurate, I wonder if it is actually an even worse situation than the story told.

Reading that story the other day, my manager and I started talking about these type of incidents and how the potential for disaster is abundant. He related to me that the funeral home he started his apprenticeship at engaged in this practice.

He told me about one graveside service. They had already had the service and the family had left the cemetery and the work was just getting started. All of a sudden, a flower truck from the funeral home came screeching up to the graveside and the driver yelled out to hold off on lowering the casket. The embalmers had forgotten the viscera bag all together and sent the viscera out to the cemetery in a flower truck to be placed into the casket.

They barely made it. A few more minutes and the casket would have been lowered and the vault lid placed on, the grave filled and the funeral home would have had a bag full of viscera laying around.

Who would have been left holding the bag on that one?

　

I just couldn’t resist a corny pun there. Sewing up an autopsy with the viscera bag is a pain in the you know what but the alternative is just not worth not taking the time to do it.

　

　

Doc J, PHD.
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"Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead, and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of the people, their respect for the law of the land and their loyalties to high morals"- Sir William Gladstone

[Doc-J]

Monday February 8, 2010 in the Life of Doc J and Doc J’s Believe It or Not:


Not much to talk about for this past weekend. The slowest weekend we have had in a long time. Our phone did not ring all weekend. Not once, not even one of our Wal-Mart calls we usually get.

The only good thing about it is our competitor did not have anything going on either, so things are just slow all around right now. February is usually a slow month for us here anyway, the next two months are our big funeral months so we will see.



Doc J’s Believe It or Not:


One of the owners of a funeral home I worked at before died last night. He was the big reason I left that funeral home in the first place but I truly hate that he died. He had been in poor health for years and finally succumbed.



I’m not sure why this particular story is on my mind but it is so here goes.


Years ago, back at The Buck, we had a funeral director that had been transferred to us from central prep following a back injury while embalming. We called this guy “Stick” and I’m not sure why. This guy was typically a nice guy but had a very short fuse. Very short. He had burned his bridges with most everyone but I always got along with him for some reason.

When he would get ticked off, and it didn’t take much to tick him off, he did not care if his anger was shown to co-workers, family, ministers, management, etc. It simply did not matter. Matter of fact, he had broken the nose of a man he worked for before he ever started at Ridout’s. That should have been a red flag.

We often got paired to work together, most likely because I could usually keep him in check. One service; however, there was no hope. It was a typical chapel service at The Buck. Nice family, pretty large crowd and a minister that was running late.

The minister arrived just a few minutes before the final viewing was due to start and he came rushing in extremely apologetic and took a moment to speak with the family. While he was speaking to the family, this funeral director was standing beside him ready to go over the order of service and hand him his obituary card. Personally, I have no problem being patient and waiting for a good moment to get with the minister and go over things but this funeral director did not know the meaning of the word patience.

He tried to get the ministers attention several times and kept interrupting the meeting with the family, so Stick literally threw the ministers card at the minister, hitting him in the chest and yelled at him “When you are ready to talk to the funeral director, maybe you can find me.” I politely walked up to the minister as though nothing had happened and told him just to come over and speak with me as I would take over the service.

Not surprisingly, Stick’s days at Ridout’s were numbered and he was gone. Last I heard he had gone out of state and burned some bridges, then to north Alabama and burned some more and I have lost track of him. Patience is a virtue.



Doc J, PHD.
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"Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead, and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of the people, their respect for the law of the land and their loyalties to high morals"- Sir William Gladstone

[rum_runner69]

patients may be a virtue ... but I know for my self it's very hard to have enough
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[Embalm_u2]

keep em coming doc, even if you don't have a daily update, daily stories would be nice....

[Embalm_u2]

Doc must have gotten busy again, or he forgot about us...I hope it is the first one...

[grasshopper]

busy.... we got a body in today and this weekend will be my first catholic visitation and funeral.
_________________
~Revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude ~ Charles Caleb Colton

[rum_runner69]

fun fun fun
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[Embalm_u2]

well doc, I have been waiting...

[rum_runner69]

am sure the good doc is busy .... but I'll get grasshopper to needle him soon
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[Embalm_u2]

busy or not I want my fix...

[Floyd Newton]

ME TOO!!

[Embalm_u2]

oh where oh where could doc j be...i have been waiting patiently...