I'm so excited! We have a new donation, but this isn't like any of the other donations we've had
in a really long time and I could tell you what it is, but I think I'd really rather show you. So
why don't you come with me and we'll do a little unboxing. What do you say? Alright let's do it!
Alright, so now we're in our conservation lab and this is the best place to do the unboxing, but
first let me give you a little bit of a backstory. About almost a year ago, I was contacted by
a lovely gentleman--let's call him R.P.--now R.P. needed a heart transplant and he wanted to know
if we wanted his old heart when he was done using it. So of course we said yes. R.P. had his heart
transplant, he's doing well, and the hospital was kind enough to ship us this heart. So, without
further ado, let's see what it looks like! I have not opened this, I have no idea what I'm going
to find. I have no idea what it's going to look like except for one thing: they did tell me that
it wasn't an entirely full heart like, a complete heart. So apparently, in certain
heart transplants, maybe all heart transplants, I don't know, they don't actually take out the
whole heart. I think the top part of it might not actually be there. So even though it's not a full
heart, I'm still really excited about this. So I'm also excited because it's really light
and I'm just wondering how they actually packaged it. I do know they did a really good job with the
tape because there's a lot of tape here and it is quite difficult to open. Here we go!
Layer one, foam. Oh, so here is a--oh, towel--might need that for later. Alright guys,
here it is! Here it is. We're going to cut now because I think I'm going to
put on a little bit more PPE before I open this. Okay, so stay tuned! Okay, I'm back.
As you can see, I've got some protection on. Now I'm not really so worried about any particular
pathogens or anything like that, I know we're in pandemic times, but I know that this heart
is in a formalin solution, so that can be a little bit not-so-nice for humans. So what I'm doing now,
I tried to get that knot out, wasn't happening, so I'm just going to try and use a knife here
and open up this biohazard or bio-waste bag, and we're going to see what's inside. Hopefully I'll
be able to see it because, I'll be honest, this is really fogging up, having a hard time seeing it.
Alright, this is exciting. Alright, what do we got here...well this is a sample container
and you can see that they really really shrink wrap that. This looks amazing!
And it is really shrink wrapped, and I wonder if I open this up,
there's a good chance it's just going to kind of do that thing, like when you have
one of those vacuum sealed things of coffee and it just kind of...
This is why we're wearing this. So let's see what happens.
Did you hear that?
Alright here we go...Let
me tell y'all,
this is super exciting.
This also really looks like some tupperware I own, which is slightly disconcerting. Okay. Oh boy.
How do I open this without splashing myself? Well I've got a nice little absorbent thing here,
I've got a backup container just in case things go pear-shaped. Here we go...Hi
heart of R.P.! Wow! Here we go. Oh this is so cool. Now I know what you guys are thinking:
this does not look much like a heart, does it. Well, first of all,
this was not a good heart. This is the heart that had to be replaced. Wow, and of course during the
shipment and the packaging, it took on a kind of...got mushed. Now I'm gonna see if perhaps
a little time in some fluid will make it a little bit better.
Also, this is in a fairly high concentration of formalin so while the smell isn't bothering
me because I have my wonderful mask on, which is effective, my eyes are actually starting to water.
So now that you've seen it, now that I've seen it, I'm very excited. Thank you thank you,
R.P. Now we've got a lot of work to do. There's going to be a lot of conservation
involved in this. We've got to get it into a solution. There's lots of work to be done,
but we'll keep you posted. So thank you for coming along on this journey with me for this unboxing
and stay tuned for some next updates about how we're going to conserve this wonderful heart!