Bones! Bones! Bones!

Today I helped put a human skeleton back together. The forensic anthropologist, this awesome girl named Nici who also happens to ride a scooter (is it just me, or are all girls who ride scooters incredibly cool and hot?), let me hang out with her while she was going through some human remains. These remains consisted of bones that were found fairly recently after having sat out in the woods for several years. They arrived in several paper grocery bags, and she was in the process of laying them out in a human-shaped arrangement, so as to make a note of what was there and what was missing.

I "helped" her do this. If repeatedly dropping the vertebrae and being unable to identify the fibula counts as helping. Honestly, I forgot what the name of the fibula was - only one of the three bones in the leg, and I totally could not think of what it was called. It was a huge wake up call to review the old anatomy. The fibula? Come on, Fiona.

It brings me back to the first few months of medical school when I had my school-issued box of human bones sitting in the apartment (my "bone box"). I'm sure mike really appreciated having a human skull and a femur sitting on the dining room table. Back then, not only could I name all the bones, I could tell you what every little protuberance and indentation was called. Not anymore. It goes very very fast.

Today I learned how to "side the ribs," aka to figure out whether they come from the right or left side of the body. The inferior aspect is sharp - that's the key. I also learned how to tell the difference between thoracic and lumbar vertebrae - the thoracic ones look like a giraffe face and the lumbar ones look like a moose face. Trés scientifíc. I ALSO learned how to tell the difference between a bullet hole and an animal bite. The bullet hole has bevelling. This skeleton had both.

My life is getting more and more like a tv show everyday.