Yesterday, my grandma, my mom, and I went to see Bodies Revealed.  Bodies Revealed is one of those traveling exhibits that shows us the insides of real human bodies.

There was a huge uproar about this exhibit when it first came to Kansas City, but as long as these bodies were donated to science by consent, I don’t see the problem.  It was fascinating.  I was afraid that it would make me physically sick to see the bodies and organs, as I can barely stand to watch those surgeries they show on TV, but there were only a couple of moments that got to me.  Overall, it made me understand how my body works much better.  It also, more than anything, made me that much more aware of how fragile life is, which is a major accomplishment seeing as how I was already vividly aware of this.  There are just so many things that can go wrong with the human body!  It’s somewhat terrifying.

This exhibit shows everything from healthy organs to a brain from someone who had a stroke, a fatty liver, a liver with cirrhosis, lungs with emphysema and lung cancer (yikes - if you smoke, please stop now), colon cancer, entire reproductive systems - both male and female, and fetal development, among many others.

It was this last room that got to me the most.  They show fetuses in various stages of development.  For the older ones, their bodies were infused with some sort of process that almost made their tiny bones glow to make them more visible.  It about broke my heart.    I’ve always been pro-choice (except for late-term), but seeing how from the very earliest stage, these little beings have little faces, and fingers and toes reinforced what I already knew - I personally could never and would never do it.  One thing I appreciated was that before entering this room, they posted a warning and pointed you towards an alternate route if you preferred to bypass it completely.  I know that if I had been pregnant, I probably could not have done this room.  Especially once I saw the full human body in this room.  It was a woman that had been cut open to show the tiny fetus inside of her.  I still wonder how she died.  I think this was the most disturbing part of the entire exhibit.

My biggest struggle led, as it always does, with my curious mind.  In visiting the art museum a few weeks ago, while I enjoyed the paintings, they weren’t what fascinated me.  I don’t know that much about technique or why something is “supposed” to be good or anything like that.  What fascinated me was imagining the “behind the scenes stuff.”  The history.  How long ago was it created, who created it, how was it created, why was it created, and most importantly - what were the surroundings at the time it was created, what was the person’s life like at the time they created the painting.  What were their hopes and what were their fears and dreams?  This is the stuff that fascinates me.  And the older something is, the more and more fascinated I become.

It was the same with this exhibit.  For every body, every organ, I wondered who was this?  What happened to them, what were their lives like, what did they enjoy, what did they do?  Each of these items represent a human life, so precious, and so valuable, and so sadistically short.

Next to the exhibit showcasing a set of healthy lungs next to a set of lungs stricken with lung cancer, they had a big glass box containing cigarette packs.  This box has a sign over it encouraging people to quit smoking and throw away their packs.  I want to believe that people are doing it - that they’re seeing what they’re doing to their bodies and are tossing these “cancer sticks” away, but I wonder if at least some of the packs weren’t planted by the exhibit to make you think that some people took the opportunity.

There were several cross-section slices of human bodies from various angles, front to back, top to bottom, and from the side.  Have you ever seen the movie, “The Cell“? (A fantastic movie, by the way.)  These cross-sections kept reminding me of the scene with the horse.  My mom and grandma both mentioned that a slice of an upper thigh looked like a steak to them.  Ugh.

The employees working within the exhibit apparently have some medical background in order to answer any questions you may have, and any teens and children within the exhibit were perfectly respectful and seemed genuinely interested in learning more about how their bodies work.  Perhaps this will move them to be a bit more careful with their bodies as they age.  I know I will.

I do believe it is worth a visit if this exhibit comes to your town.