Fall graphics

Shades of gray (and pink)

Shades of...

Continuing on...

Days like today are why I’ve never been able to keep a journal. There are slow days where I can indulge myself and be introspective and thoughtful. On those days, I feel the need to write something down to remind myself of what was important. But then there are busy days – work and presentations and meetings – that don’t allow for anything other than productivity. So I wrapped up a presentation, then pretended I was competent and informed during my talk. I discussed collaborations and another animal study to examine problems I accidentally unearthed within my literature review.

Then there were meetings – figuring out how to make these studies work, calculating the necessary time and effort, checking yet another article to make sure we’re not missing something that another group already knows, estimating benefits, considering future publications and grants... Respond to email - quickly - because you’re late for another seminar. Continually remind yourself to focus and resist the temptation to make lists of what still needs to be done before you can fight traffic to arrive home.

I wandered to my car in a haze of ideas and questions. Does this have clinical impact? I think that's important. How long will it take? Because I'm still working on 2 old projects and have started 3 new ones. Is there a flaw in the current literature? Maybe the authors of that paper did control for the normal variation and our study would be superfluous. Can I just add this to someone else's study? I don't want to order animals and have my own mice. It's better to use mice that are already on studies. Do I need complete committee review or can I do an expedited application? I continue to question and consider as I weave through the cars, some going slowly in the left lanes, and head toward home.

Sometimes I wonder about the people in traffic. Do they get frustrated when we stop for no apparent reason? Are they going home to celebrate? Or just to rest? Is there TV they’re looking forward to? Are they giddy from some triumph at work? But today I turned up the radio, listened to music and tried to tune everything out. I just want distractions. Something else to focus on, to ease the constant stream of things to do, people to see, tasks to accomplish. And the questions - I'd like the stream of questions to stop for a while. That’s why I started reading blogs – it was an easy escape into someone else’s world.

I guess my hope in recording all of this is that someday I’ll get clarity for my own life. I admire a few people I read. I’m pleased for their successes and happiness and smile when I read about something good happening for them. I’ve passed others by – not interesting enough, not real enough, too hard to read with all the grammatical errors, incorrect spellings, and sometimes, for goodness sake, lack of capital letters. But the ones I read consistently, I eventually feel like I understand the piece of them that they present in their work. I follow the course of certain decisions someone has made, and get to see how things work out. Occasionally, I read about a choice and disapprove. From what I know of someone and her situation, I can see life going badly if a certain road is taken. There’s some vindication in being right – in understanding something well enough to predict an outcome.

For as much as I think about my decisions, I’m terrible at predicting my outcome and will endlessly obsess on rejected alternatives and how things would be different if I had understood myself better. So I’ll continue this - maybe with some vague hope that someone else might read it. If they do, maybe they’ll figure me out and offer some insight. If not, the worst case scenario is that I do it myself. And that still puts me ahead of where I currently am.

Hitting home

The problem, as I see it, is that we become used to our environment. Bad things happen, sometimes at great frequency, and in order to survive, we become immune to some of them so we can be happy in spite of the fact that circumstances sometimes suck. I think it's an admirable trait - this adaptability - to be content in a world that is so clearly less than ideal. But sometimes it makes us tune out some critical piece of information and we lose part of ourselves.

Pre-clinical work can involve animal studies, often using rodents. The idea behind many studies requires sacrificing the animal to look at what's actually going on inside him. Then you know if your acquisition parameters are slightly off or your reconstruction algorithm isn't performing as it should. Maybe your model isn't quite right, or the organ system didn't respond as you'd predicted.

The rationale behind these animal studies is clear to me. We need to know exactly what it is we're doing and how accurate we are before we move these techniques into human clinical trials. But the idea of drugging a tiny mouse, forcing it into some immobilization contraption, then keeping it sedated for hours on end while you try to fix any number of errors is difficult for me.

I've always loved animals. I can never remember a time when I was afraid or nervous around them. We always had pets in my family. Even as a toddler, I knew you were supposed to love the animals, pet and feed, cuddle and love, and always be gentle so they knew you wouldn't hurt them - even on accident.

When I was in high school, we had mice. We started with 2 for a science project, then we ended up with somewhere around 10, I think. Shortly after the birth of the mouse babies, we implemented male/female cages. And we were gentle with our little mouse population. I remember buying them fancy cages with tunnels and tubes. At listening across the hall as they ran in their little exercise wheels. My most vivid memory is of feeding them these blue and red treats that looked remarkably like little crunch berries. They would stand on their back feet and reach up with their little front paws to take the treat. And we'd hold it between our fingers and say

"Berries from Heaven, little guys. Come get your berries from Heaven."

My distaste for the animal studies continues, but my hope is that I can do it enough to desensitize myself to it. If something makes you scared or nervous or upset, you just do it ad nauseum until it’s so normal that it can’t bother you. So that’s my plan with the mice.

But my fear is that I grow to find the clinical environment somewhat irrelevant. That I see so much disease and pain that it becomes normal. Something to mention in the introduction – “my technique aids in diagnosis or treatment” – then forget, because it doesn’t really relate to my work. It’s rare when I see patients, get a chance to talk to them, find out about their families, their priorities, their lives. When I do have that contact, I walk away being impressed by their strength, saddened by knowing what they have to endure, and supremely hopeful that by participating in a study, they’re helping someone who might suffer through this disease later.

I was reminded today that cancer affects people in major ways – their families, jobs, how they feel, what they think about. Sometimes a parent has to tell a child that she must have yet another surgery. Sometimes a son has to pull over so his father can be sick after chemotherapy. Sometimes women have to give up on their hope of having children because treatment has stolen their reproductive ability.

Tonight finds me curled up again, on my favorite corner of the couch, laptop propped on my lap. It’s storming outside, and my power just flickered. I’m listening to the rain, and watching the lightning brighten the sky. And I’m hoping, sincerely and desperately, that part of what I do will somehow make life better for someone.

Camden

I was finally able to visit the UK in the fall a couple of years ago. I arrived in London via train. I spent the journey south looking out the window after trying unsuccessfully to focus on the book I picked up at the station. I thought of how sometimes you have dreams of doing something, meeting someone or visiting somewhere, and then they come true.

After copious research and careful planning, I decided to stay slightly north of town, near Euston Station where my train arrived. I had my purse, my little travel book for the UK, and a carry-on bag perched on my suitcase. And there were 2 critical elements – I had a little piece of paper where I had written how to get to the hotel, and I was dressed up and wearing heels.

The sun was setting as my train pulled into the station, slightly delayed. As I quickly followed everyone out, I noticed a small group leaving through a side exit. Sure that this was the better way to get outside, find my bearings and get to the hotel, I followed. They quickly dispersed – most heading left. I looked around and determined that I needed to go right. Confident in my ability to find the hotel, I set off, pulling my heavy suitcase behind me. Clicking along in my heels, I followed the road until it ended, then went left and started seeing signs welcoming me to Camden. I didn’t even see it on my map, and eventually decided I was far north of where I wanted to be.

I retraced my steps, asked three people for directions, and found the hotel. Though I was tired and had wounded my feet, I woke up early the next morning, ready to begin on my perfectly planned itinerary. Armed with the map I had carefully highlighted to depict my optimum route, I headed out to tackle London yet again, this time in more sensible shoes. My route contained several sights, and I made it past the British Museum and continued on through the theatre district. Glancing at my map, I noticed I was doing well – the walk wasn’t taking nearly as long as I thought. Pleased with myself, I decided that if I headed slightly east, I could begin at Covent Garden and proceed westward throughout the day.

I must have been distracted while taking pictures of early-morning London. Maybe I just got turned around – my sense of direction is notoriously poor. But for whatever reason, I walked for about an hour. I was suspicious that what had once appeared so near was taking so long to reach, but I decided to bask in the wonder of exploring somewhere new. Then I found myself gazing up at the British Telecom Tower, once again far north of where I had hoped to be. Farther north, as it turned out, than I had started that morning. Camden had somehow taken my carefully highlighted map and sucked me back into a place where there was little to see or do.

I thought about Camden today. I attended a meeting at work – one that broke my heart and made me wonder why I’m pursuing this career when I’m so ill-equipped to handle it sometimes – then, rather than going into the office for the remainder of the afternoon, I came home. All the time telling myself to be a professional and proceed to my tiny cubicle, I detoured to the parking deck, found my car, and navigated the busy streets and interstate to return to my little sanctuary. Sometimes, despite the best of plans and intentions, I continue this cycle that somehow places me far from where I wanted to be. So I’m curled up in the corner of my couch, looking around at a professional BT Tower, and not seeing a friendly-looking red tour bus that can help me find my way.

Thinking

I spend a lot of time in my head - daydreaming during seminars, making lists on my walks from the parking structure, drafting conversations - some that never happen - while I should be writing papers or explaining some semi-complex scientific thought. I've found that keeping some much of myself inside makes me fumble when I try to translate the thoughts to spoken or written words. Grad school, followed by my current post-doc, have made me even more self-involved. So I'm hoping that by reviewing some of my daydreams, lists and conversations, I'll learn something - maybe think a little less and do a little more.