10 Things about the Dangerous Health Hazards of Corpses
© 2006 Noborder Network, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio
1. Dead body ≠ Doom and Destruction of the Public Health
Under normal circumstances, dead bodies are safe and offer no reasonable danger to the public health.
A dead body offers no more danger than it did when it was living.
2. In Some Circumstances, Embalming Can Make a Dead Body Safer
Sure, embalming will kill things like AIDS and the aliens that are hiding out in a host body; but, (for the most part) a dead body is safe sans embalming. The purpose for embalming is mainly restoration and not primarily public safety.
3. Universal Precautions
If you ever find yourself touching any body fluids of the dead (or the living) use protective garments like latex gloves.
4. AIDS
AIDS will live approximately 24 hours in a dead body, unless that body has been embalmed, in which case the embalming fluid will presumably kill it.
5. Ebola: “bum bum bum bum bummm”
Unlike most pathogens, the Ebola virus lives for an unknown period of time after a victim’s death (ViaScientific American). Unfortunately, the assumption that the virus dies along with the deceased has been a major cause of its spread in parts of Africa where touching and handling the body is a common practice for the deceased’s living family members. Some have claimed that ‘Up to 50% of victims catch Ebola at funerals’ (Via RT.com).
We don’t embalm Ebola cases. We burn them. With fire.
6. Hepatitis B and hepatitis C, enteric intestinal pathogens, tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox.
A dead body can still harbor all of these horrors. Unless you really know the person (or are using protective gear), it’s not smart to touch the body fluids (blood, spit, etc.) of living bodies and neither is it smart to touch the body fluids of the dead.
7. THE DEAD BODIES WILL POISON THE WATER SUPPLY!!!
Contamination of a water supply by the dead may result in the spread of gastroenteritis from normal intestinal contents. But this is very rare and usually only happens when there’s natural disasters and the the bodies are everywhere.
8. Obviously Zombies.
If you have a zombie on your hands, don’t call your funeral director unless, of course, he looks like Daryl Dixon.
9. The Miasma theory isn’t true.
Before the germ theory, most people held to the Miasma theory which is that diseases spread through the air. In other words, you catch a disease by breathing in bad air. While there are airborne diseases, we know now that it’s not the air itself but the germs that spread disease.
So, if you smell the horrible smell of a decomposing corpse, it’s not going to kill you.
10. The Real Danger of an Average Dead Body
The substances cadaverine and putrescine are produced during the decomposition of animal (including human) bodies, and both give off a foul odor. If you were to ingest 20g of putrescine (the weight of a Chicken Nugget), it would be toxic. By way of comparison the similar substance spermine, found in semen, is over three times as toxic.
Drowning in the Waves of Grief
© 2011 Aimanness Photography, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio
Waves crash over you, throwing body and mind
In chaotic directions of darkness and pain.
You were made for the land and so you hold your breath
As you claw your feet into the ground.
The currents pull you out deeper and deeper
Each gasp is met by another wave of details and emotions.
What do we do now?
“Gasp”
When should we have the funeral?
“Gasp”
Should I go back to work this week?
“Gasp”
How can I raise the kids on my own?
“Gasp”
Death and grief plunge you again into a foreign terrain
Where every breath is struggle.
You weren’t meant for this
Separation
Grief
Death.
You will never see them again
Except in the recesses of your mind where
Memories will be replaying
Scenes that become distorted by time and erosion.
The sleepless nights
“Gasp”
The disingenuous platitudes
“Gasp”
The religious cliches
“Gasp”
The loneliness
“Gasp”
Wave after wave.
You will not accept this.
You will never reach “acceptance”
Of the new normal that threatens the foundations of being
Foundations broken by the waves that rippled
When he/she fell into the depths of the oceans
Leaving you in the wake of the waves.
If you give yourself, you won’t be forgotten: a reflection on Alzheimer’s disease
Alois Alzheimer’s patient Auguste Deter in 1902. Hers was the first described case of what became known as Alzheimer’s disease.
“Auguste D aus Marktbreit” by Unknown – Unknown. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia
The Promethium advances of medical science
Watch from the sidelines as deteriorating minds
Are rendered to a nascent infancy where
Memory
Words
And person
Fade backwards into nothing.
If you give something away you don’t lose it.
“Nothing can be done” your doctor sheepishly admits
“Your time is slowly fading”
Your questions like,
How long?
When will I lose my license?
Will I be violent? What will I become?
Are met with a simple, “I don’t know.”
The anticipatory grief begins.
If you give something away you can’t lose it.
Time is now a precious commodity
Time is now your worst enemy
Time will fade you
Time will take your memories
Now and only now is your best time
Now is the time to get the house in order
When you give your memories away you can’t lose them
Active management for such a passive disease
Write it down
Record it.
Share “that one time . . .”
Use that time to give, give and give.
Give yourself away. Quickly.
Time is running out.
Because . . .
If you give yourself, you won’t be forgotten
Good Irish Funeral Music: “Danny Boy” Revisited
© 2012 Brian Eager, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio
Today’s guest post is written by NYC Funeral Director Amy Cunningham:
It seems fitting to reveal on Saint Patrick’s Day that the most common Google query that reliably draws readers to “The Inspired Funeral” day after day, week after week, is “Irish Funeral Music.” The last Irish funeral music post I wrote, garnered me tens-of-thousands of page views. Either the Irish are needing to know what is traditional or new to their own funerals, or those who aren’t Irish want to convey an Irish vibe to the festivities.
So lately, in my effort to be of sound funeral planning assistance, I’ve been fixated on how to make “Danny Boy,” the most famous of all Irish funeral ballads, new again. Can the beloved, seasoned, ever-so-classic-you-can’t-believe-they’re-trotting-it-out-again ballad be even more heart warming than it already is? Yes, it’s terrific–a total knock-out, in fact– sung in the classic mode by a male tenor, but here are some ideas you might consider when confronted with a funeral where “Danny Boy” is requested.
1. READ THE LYRICS AS STRAIGHT TEXT. DON’T HAVE IT SUNG AT ALL . Just read all four stanzas aloud from a podium, and grope for your handkerchief. Read it as a poem, aloud right now, and realize that by the time most singers get to the best, most moving lines, we listeners have been lulled into a sad, sweet snooze. (Take note, in stanza three: an “Ave” means “a prayer.”)
Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer’s gone, and all the flowers are dying
‘Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow
‘Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.
And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an “Ave” there for me.
And I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you’ll not fail to tell me that you love me
I’ll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.
2. HAVE IT PLAYED WITHOUT THE LYRICS AS AN INSTRUMENTAL ON A SLIGHTLY UNUSUAL INSTRUMENT. Here’s a super great “Danny Boy,” totally right for a funeral, on church pipe organ and solo trumpet. Here’s Eric Clapton playing it on guitar with characteristic emotion, and not singing a word. And if you’re bleary-eyed from too much funeral planning and need a little chuckle, here’s “Danny Boy” played as an instrumental, down in the NYC subway system, on a saw.
3. JETTISON THE MALE IRISH TENOR. Women have been singing “Danny Boy” beautifully since soprano Elsie Griffin belted it out at the turn of the century. My personal favorite female-rendered “Danny Boy” is Sinead O’Connor’s, recorded in such a way that you could quickly improve any “Danny Boy” funeral by cuing it from an iPhone into Bose speakers. Nice save. And don’t neglect the grandchildren! They can sing “Danny Boy” at a grandfather’s funeral, and rock the house (though funeral music should generally not be a performance).
4. FINALLY, CONSIDER EMPLOYING A MORE UPBEAT “DANNY BOY” AFTER THE FUNERAL’S CLOSING. This idea might not be everyone’s pint of tea (or Guinness), but imagine “Danny Boy” played on sprightly banjo, after all concluding remarks and benedictions, as people are warmly greeting each other, hugging, finding their coats, blowing their noses, and remarking what a good funeral it was (Irish or not). Moral: it’s okay for a funeral to leave people uplifted in the vast majority of instances, grateful that the deceased were with us for as long as they were, and happier themselves–goddamnit– to still be alive, resolved to make good use of whatever time is left.
*****
About the author: Amy Cunningham is a New York City funeral director and funeral celebrant especially passionate about getting families back involved in more personalized planning. She lectures on back-to-basics funeral planning and the greening of the industry. In her prior life she was a magazine journalist who wrote for Parenting, More, Glamour, and the Washington Post magazine. She is an active member of the National Home Funeral Association and ICCFA.
She writes a blog called TheInspiredFuneral.com
10 MUSTS for EVERY Ethical Funeral Professional
1. Strict adherence to The Funeral Rule. Obv.
2. Guide families to choose financially responsible funerals that won’t make them “funeral poor”.
3. Educate families in alternative options even if those options are detrimental to the bottom line.
4. Always choose transparency and disclosure over secrecy and intention omission.
5. Make sure every choice the family makes is completely theirs sans sales pressure.
6. Integrity is doing what’s right when nobody is looking. Ethical funeral directors always practice integrity.
7. Never encourage families to purchase out of guilt, or equate love of the deceased with a high priced funeral.
8. Never put yourself or the business in a financially strenuously situation where you might be tempted to overprice your service and merchandise.
9. Practice responsible self-care to avoid burnout and compassion fatigue.
10. Know your knowledge boundaries. Direct those questions outside our professional knowledge to the people who are qualified to answer. We aren’t lawyers, doctors, grief counselors or theologians.
