Anaatomical Autobiography

Of all the topics in The Guinness World Records, nothing delighted me more than the chapter on humans, specifically anatomical anomalies. A carnival of superlatives: the stretchiest skin, farthest eyeball pop, heaviest man, and longest fingernails incited a gross fascination. Some of the best hours in my childhood were suspended within the bright holographic hardcovers of this series devoted to the magic of human achievements. The book offered a global snapshot of life in all its glory- from the ridiculous and peculiar to the unsavory and grotesque. My mother was a milliner. I grew up surrounded by chartreuse chiffon, Chanel dot veiling, turquoise peacock feathers, and wide-brimmed hats covered with silk roses. A single mother since my birth,

It made me proud, but her artistry made her the black sheep in a family of medical professionals. Being her daughter and only child, I felt compelled to carry on the tradition of an artful, entrepreneurial career. Like so many other pre-teens, I pinned my hopes on becoming an actress, after discovering a passion for the performing arts from playing Wendy in “Peter Pan” and Ursula in “The Little Mermaid.” I soon learned though that being behind the curtain was much more my style— stage makeup application, learned from watching drag queen tutorials, fulfilled my artistic

A retired pathologist, his memory held a diverse and quirky collection of random facts on human diseases. From dissecting the true-life stories of patient illnesses in the book, The Woman with a Worm in Her Head by Pamela Nagami, to the psychological ramifications behind Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, our talks fueled my quest. Consequently, YouTube documentaries on medicine and healing then became my logical next step in advancing my own learning. By binge-watching these videos, I’ve been introduced to the world of surgical procedures, such as rhinoplasty, gastric-bypass surgery, intraoperative brain mapping, and heart transplants. After viewing these stories, dissecting rats and cracking frog skulls in my Biology class seem awfully