Recruiting

Besides bleeding profusely, another part of this rotation is observing research coordinators recruit participants for a study at Northwestern. Crazies abound.

Recruiter: Okay, and then you sign here.
Man: Do you mind if I use my pen? It's a fountain pen. It's one of the last vestiges of my bourgeois lifestyle.

Recruiter: (explains the DNA bank)
Woman: I saw a movie on that once! They abducted women and kept them in pods underwater and took their DNA and cloned them! Are you doing cloning?!

Recruiter: Have you ever lived within five miles of a power plant?
Woman: One time I had rats in my house.

Recruiter: Have you ever been exposed to any of these chemicals more than the average person?
Woman: No...
Recruiter: Okay, then-
Woman: One time I was exposed to cat urine.
Recruiter: Oh, uh, that's not really on our list, so-
Woman: I think there should be information on long-term exposures and short-term, substantial exposures.
Me, thinking: How the hell much cat urine are we talking here?
Recruiter: Well, if cat urine was an exposure we'd have a lot more sick people in the hospital!
Woman: Oh, yeah! I work with toxic chemicals.
Recruiter: Okay, what kind?
Woman: Paints. And cadmium.

Blood Type: F-

I'm in a rotation at school that's all about research and laboratory genetics. Fascinating. Mostly it consists of sitting in a tiny, freezing yellow break room trying to maintain my body temperature and waiting for lab people to come get me so I can watch them do things that require gloves, bodily fluids and expensive machinery. The internet cuts out whenever someone uses the microwave, maintenance people fly by the doors on strange indoor cars and Chinese lab techs slurp disgusting entrees while reading websites that look like pop-up ads. I'm learning a lot.

Anyway, as a part of this rotation we get to have our own chromosomes done, something that I am inordinately excited about. In order to do this, we obviously have to give a blood sample. I'm the last person in this rotation, so I've watched as my classmates take their empty tubes to parts unknown and then some time later, return with their very own karyotypes. Thanksgiving is sort of hosing up my whole rotation, so I've been working on getting my stuff done around the break. I asked around about getting my blood drawn, and all points seemed to indicate that I should get it done at University of Chicago, where my rotation is. I headed to the campus last Friday and told my supervisor that I was interested in getting my blood drawn. She told me that the last time the nurse came down to draw someone's blood (to the basement, of course, because where else would a genetics laboratory be?) she got in trouble because it wasn't really her job. My supervisor told me she'd see if anyone was around who could do it and left. I began the futile search for a wifi connection to pass the time. A little while later, supervisor came back followed by a lab tech.

"Lisa, Anthony can draw your blood. He used to draw blood as part of a research protocol, so he said he'd be fine doing it." Anthony walked over to me.

"Can I see your arms?" I proffered my elbowpits for his inspection. "Hmmm. You have really tiny veins."

"Yeah, I know."

"Well... I think I can do it." Think? Real great. Yes, please stick pointy things in my arm as long as you think you can do it.

"If you're really going to do this," I said, "I want to hear some confidence."

"I can do it." All right. I want these chromosomes, we'll just get it over with today and then I'll be on my way to a shiny copy of my genetic material. We agreed to meet after the lab meeting, and he went off to become more confident. I began chugging water to encourage my veins to swell.

After the seemingly eternal lab meeting, I met Anthony in the molecular lab. He had an armful of blood-letting paraphernalia, including but not limited to butterfly needles, tourniquets, tubes, tubing, alcohol and band aids. They put down an absorbent pad to hold all of this and I sat down. Anthony enlisted another woman in the lab to hold the blood tube and depress the plunger-thing when the blood started coming out, and we began. I looked away, not interested in the details of this process. I was perched on a lab stool and didn't feel like fainting onto the lab floor from such a height. I focused on anything else while things were happening to my arm. Anthony declared that the needle was going in, and I braced myself for... nothing, really. It didn't hurt at all. I didn't hear any calls of triumph for quite some time. And then:

"Uh... oh. I think I went through the artery. I didn't get it."

Hmmm. You'd think I would have felt that. I felt him pull away and turned my head to see what was going on. What was going on was that a river of blood was pouring down my arm, all over the absorbent pad, dripping down off of my shoe and puddling on the floor. Oh. That's not what we set out to do.

Anthony began a non-stop stream of apologies while pressing gauze into the bend of my arm. "I am so, so sorry. Are you okay? I am so so sorry."

And honestly, it still didn't hurt at all. If I hadn't looked over, I would not have known that I was exsanguinating. Quite a surprise, really. Luckily I excel at clotting and the source quickly dried up. Anthony cleaned up the microcosmic murder scene while I cringed at the large purple welt on my arm. Sonofabitch.

So that was an utter failure. No blood. Well, plenty of blood, but none in the tube. But still, nothing had hurt so far, so that was good.

"Do you want me to try again?"

Well that was certainly a question. I weighed my options and decided to go for it. I can't truly explain why, looking back on it. I wanted it done, I wanted my chromosomes, I didn't want to have bled all over the floor for nothing. I nodded slowly.

"One more try." He found a suitable spot and prepared to try again. The tube was set, I looked away. And this one hurt. I could feel everything and it was not good. He tried in vein (see what I did there?) for a few seconds and then gave up. No blood for the tube. More apologies and some thanks for trying and I left, feeling oddly like a failure.

For the rest of the day, every time I saw Anthony he apologized. I think I have a cookie bouquet coming my way. But honestly, most of it didn't hurt. The only (ha: only) reminder I have is an alarmingly large, reddish-purple bruise that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

And I still have to find someone to draw my blood.

Fail.

This just happened.

Cast
Me, walking down the hall.
Some guy, walking behind me.

Some guy: Girl, you TALL!
Me: Huh? Yeah, I guess.
Some guy: What are you, like six feet?
Me? Nope. 5'9".
Some guy: TALL.

End scene.

CPS from NSGC in LA

Back from NSGC with fun LA stories and tons of cheap plastic crap. Family, don't look to closely at this picture. Some of it is gifts. The, uh, higher quality crap. :) Promise.


I'll write again soon, but right now I'm just too tired. So, so, so, frickin' frackin' tired.

Elusive Creatures...

I discovered over vacation that my camera has a time-lapse video function. The other day I got a memo under my door that window washers were going to be working on my building. This video is the inevitable result of these two events.

I know the music's kind of cliched but I couldn't think of a song about window washers besides Barenaked Ladies' 'When I Fall' and that was kind of slow and depressing. Any better ideas?

Sigh.

Making New Friends

Yesterday I had to leave a session to make a phone call. I do that on a fairly regular basis, when the session is a bit boring or to call my friends to brag about the rarity of the condition my patient has. This time, I ducked into an exam room to call a lab to check the cost of a test. I was transferred from the lab to the billing department and put on hold, and during the transfer I heard what might have been a bizarre, strangled scream. I have no more information about that nor does it lead to anything else later in the story; it just weirded me out.

I waited for an indeterminate amount of time. Bored, I looked to my surroundings for entertainment. Sitting on the desk in front of me was a stack of two Tupperware containers. The top one appeared to contain a clump of hair submerged in a bit of water. "Well that's werid," I thought, absently picking up the container. "Who cleans out their shower comb and saves it for the doctor?"

I checked the label. "[Patient's name]'s pin worms with eggs attached. Keep in water." Oh. Holy. Jebus. Picture me, sitting in an exam room on the phone, stuck on hold with a lab and a handful of presumably still living parasitic intestinal worms. "Quick" is an understatement describing the speed with which I set that Tupperware down. The one beneath the original nightmare contained what at first glance, still in my parasite-crazed mind, appeared to be folds of infested intestinal tissue. I soon realized that it was actually paper towels. Shut up, I was bracing myself for the worst. This one was just some pinworm eggs from the same patient. Just some parasite eggs.

Holy crap, who is this chick?! Where is she?! Did she sit in this chair?! Okay, done. Put the phone down, holding or not, and went to wash my hands. Up to the elbows. Several times. By the time I got back to the phone it was making a weird beeping noise, so I hung up and called back, only to be put back on hold. Very good phone system they have down at Baylor. At this point, the infectious disease doctor popped in to the room.

"Are you hanging out with my worms?" he asked, grabbing the disgusting containers.

"Yeah, then I had to wash my hands," I replied, then realizing that information was totally unnecessary, that now this doctor knew I was touching the worm containers, freaking out about touching the worm containers and worrying that worms could transmit their eggs through plastic to my skin. He didn't need to know that.

Broken.

Here is an amazing list of the things that I own that have broken recently.

1. My DVD player's sound amplifies the music and sound effects and minimizes the dialogue. This happened a while ago actually but I recently got Netflix so it's come up again.

2. Driving back to Chicago I realized a little door on the dashboard of my car won't stay closed. Some stupid plastic part of the hinge is broken. The corner of it digs right into my knee while I drive. It's great.

3. Got new headphones in the mail courtesy of a lifetime warranty! Whee! One of the earbuds exploded the other day (less than a month after receiving them) and I am now forced to half-listen to idiots on the bus and train. Thanks a pantload, Koss.

4. Took my necklace off today and the chain broke. Wonderful.

5. Had an allergic reaction to something on my legs that resulted in some extremely broken skin. Yeah, that's probably reaching. But it was AWFUL. Itching to the point where my legs were twitching involuntarily, it hurt to touch and my only option for sleeping was pounding a few Benadryl. Wow, when I put it it like that maybe I should have sought medical attention. Eh, it's clearing up now.

6. Laptop. This one's painful. The screen had been pink for a while, but thanks to the store I bought it from going out of business, my warranty couldn't be extended like I had planned. I put up with the pink for about four months (after a while you don't even notice it, I swear! Just don't put it near anything that's actually white) and then one morning the poor little guy flickered and went black. If I shined a flashlight on the screen I can see the icons, (what, this wouldn't be your first instinct?) but it's utterly unusable. Like trying to play a first generation Gameboy at night. Not gonna happen. I Frankenstein-ed it up to another monitor to extract my precious, precious data and sent it off and was hopeful. I got the call today with the estimate. $978.36. Nine hundred and seventy-eight dollars and thirty-six cents. So that's not going to happen anymore. I am no longer a mobile computer-er.

7. The cat's sinus infection is back so she's kind of broken too.

Hopefully my old computer won't explode when I hit publish. Also, I just remembered how bright and shiny and happy my last post was... Fancy New Kinsley, the Fancy New Manic Depressive.

NEXT!

Hard to believe I'm on my fifth rotation. It seems like just yesterday I was fearing for my life on the 4 down to U of C. Now I'm living it up on the X9 en route to Rush Medical Center. Woo! Much improvement here.

And I just found out a formerly weekly 8 am, hour-long lecture, one of which I was supposed to give (boo!) was changed to a once a month lecture with no student presentations (yay!).

And today, on my first day of my rotation I held a 5-pound premie twin my supervisor was too scared to hold. She said that noble deed earned me an automatic A for the rotation, and I WILL be holding her to that.

Also, I don't have to come to clinic tomorrow (no patients = no me) and there's an Air and Water show all this weekend - my supervisor printed me the schedule (!) complete with a "unique night show with a dazzling pyrotechnic display and streams of sparkling light in sync with music."

Everything's coming up Lisa!

Stay tuned, I'm liable to find an immortal, maintenence-free puppy that sheds rainbows and craps Reece's Pieces the way this day is going. Woo!

I know.

I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy with end of the year stuff. And look at what I have to deal with at home.One cleans windows with ammonium hydroxide. The other is dermatologist-approved to cleanse sensitive facial skin. They both come in blue packages and are currently sitting on the couch together.

I'm not saying my life is fraught with danger that keeps me on my toes and ever-alert. But I'm not saying it isn't, either.

I'll post when I can. Stay safe.

Podcast Pickiness

I have a strange relationship with music. One day, we're BFF. Singing, dancing... it's a great bond. Other days - most days - I can't listen to any song for more than ten seconds. Seems kind of silly for a girl like me to have an iPod, you might say. Shut up, I'll do what I want, I say in an immature reply. Enter podcasts. Talking on just about every topic under the sun, free for the downloading. I have a roster that keeps me sane on the public transportation here and I'm always trying to add new podcast friends to my playlists. To encourage me to keep posting here, I've decided to write about a podcast a week. I'll start with the ones I know I like and then perhaps venture out into new and different podcasts. Suggestions are welcome, so fellow podcast junkies, feel free to let me know who's chatting it up on your mp3 player of choice. Here we go!

Slate Explainer Podcast

In theory, this podcast is a fantastic idea; in practice, it's been a bumpy road. This podcast is a great exmaple of the importance of the narrator. I love this column on the Slate website, so when I found there was a podcast I literally squee'd with joy. (Squee: verb. To squeal girlishly, usually in conjunction with a positive emotion.) When I started listening, June Thomas was the speaker. She was all right aside from her bizarre accent. It sounded like a typical Scottish accent with the occasional word that would come flying out of her mouth and bitchslap me with the absolute ridiculousness of her pronunciation. Soon, I stopped enjoying the podcast. I began listening on edge, waiting for the next retarded word to arrive. Before long she was replaced, and her replacement made me long for the days of stupid pronunciations.

Michelle Tsai is the bane of my iPod's existence. Supposedly she's a writer for Slate, and she should stick to a medium that doesn't require me or anyone else with any hearing ability to listen to her voice. She speaks with the affected sing-song voice of a braindead Valley girl who would be booted from The Hills for being too ditzy and annoying. In Tsai-talk, every statement is a question, and every question is coquettishly overacted. I picture her flouncing into the studio to record each week and it infuriates me. Occaasionally some other guy reads the Explainer. Yeah, those are the good weeks. I was forced to give up listening to this podcast because I was going to have to feed my iPod into a wood chipper if if I heard that she was "Michelle Tsai and this is the Explainer podcast for Thursday, March thirtinkth" one more time. Thirtinkth is not a typo, it's an attempt to capture the spine-crinkling annoyingness of her voice. Thirtinkth. That's actually how she says it. Grr. Hang on, I've got to go punch something.

A few months ago, I would have only recommended this podcast to you if you had either a huge tolerance for Valley girl or a deafening love of trivia. Even then I would have pointed you to the web column instead. However, there has recently been a long-awaited changing of the guard. Other listeners must have felt the same way because Tsai has gone the way of the dodo. There's a new female narrator, which means that my boycott of the Explainer podcast is over! New girl has a minor problem with over-enunciation here and there, but for now I'm chalking that up to excitement about her new job. Time will tell, but I don't think she'll take the Tsai-path to eardrum distruction. She had better not, anyway. We saw what happened to Tsai. Well, technically I guess we didn't. But I have my theories...

Blast from the Past: First Rotation

Look at this! Look at all these entries! Look at me go! Whee! Here's some embarrassingly old stuff I wrote but never typed up. Let's go back... way back to the first week of my very first rotation. February something. Let's set the stage for this situation. I live in Lakeview, north of my classes downtown. My first rotation was at the University of Chicago. A couple of inches on the map, if that. Keep that in mind.

On the first day, I caught the bus with two fellow 1st years who are on their lab rotation at U of C. According to the CTA website, the best buses to take were the #147 and the #4. Not that that probably means anything to you, but just know that it's not a problematic route... on paper. After we boarded the #4, it came to our attention that this. Bus. Is. Exceedingly. Painstakingly. Ridiculously. Slow. Like, stops every block as we descended into the ghetto. For over an hour.

We finally arrived at U of C and headed to our separate rotations. That first day I observed a few cases, met a world-renowned cancer doctor and then headed back home. Unfortunately I left a few minutes later than the other two and had to write the lovely #4 alone. Well, I wasn't alone, but trust me. I was alone. I managed to score a seat right away, turned up the tunes and tried to breathe out of my mouth. Seriously, this bus was nas-McAssty. And as I'm sitting there, trying to remember what stop I needed for my transfer, I see a lady sitting ahead of me. No, maybe it was a gentleman. I'm not sure. I'm sorry, sir/ma'am. Perhaps you should consider at least one article of gender specific clothing? Some lip gloss? I dunno. Just a thought if you want a bitchy blogger to be able to identify your gender when she writes about you without your permission on the Internet. Anyway.

(S)he was sitting in front of me in one of the side-facing seats behind the driver. I'm innocently looking forward to any point on the oh-so-distant horizon that is NOT in the ghetto when what do I see in my peripheral vision? The ambiguous individual burying his/her/its head in a tattered backpack and inhaling very deeply and loudly through his/her/its nose. I'd use the word "snorted," but that's a pretty judgement-laden word, and I have no way of verifying what substance, controlled or otherwise, was given an express ticket to his sinus cavity. The flu is going around, maybe it was some Vicks Vap-o-Rub. You know, to clear the sinuses. For when he/she/it snorted coke later. See, we just don't know and it's really not fair to judge.

He/She/It disembarked quickly at the next stop, so I guess I'll never know what it was. I'm no drug-scent expert, but I do know that I didn't smell any mentholated, sinus-clearing vapor wafting my way. Just unidentifiable repulsive body-related odors. I remained a mouth-breather until we re-entered civilization, where I promptly got off the bus at the wrong stop and had to walk many, many blocks to find a bus that would take me back home.

So yeah, I had the best "first day" story that night at happy hour.

As an apology...

for not posting last week, I offer this pink building. I had a packed week, but I've got stuff to post this week. Plenty of stories.

Whoops...

...maybe I just have a general problem keeping living things upright.

My Greenish Thumb

This title makes me wonder if Tara still reads this and if she'll bring up The Cactus Incident. I guess we'll just have to see.

One elusive spring day (before the temperatures plunged back into the thirties and we were issued a winter storm watch) I went to Home Depot with a friend to check out paint samples for a semi-illicit painting project we've got planned. More on that later, depending on how illicit it turns out to be. Anyway, Home Depot. I friggin' love this store. The smell, the ridiculous size, the aisles and aisles of stuff I have no use but an inexplicable desire for- it's great. We headed right to paint and attempted to determine what colors of paint were most conducive to study and concentration. And also what colors were the prettiest. I have a few seasons of Trading Spaces watching under my belt so I'm essentially an expert. We grabbed samples of some possible colors (gray with purple accent walls, we are nothing if not full of school spirit) and some light bulbs for me. I tried to find a fuse for a beloved and recently incapacitated desk lamp to no avail. I demand that you care about my mundane day-to-day illumination activities.

And then, an astounding discovery - a display of water lilies that can be grown in containers! That's not even the best part! They were all labeled with the flower's expected color. I began looking through them to see what was available when what should I see but the most wonderful word possible when dealing with colors: changeable. Changeable! Changeable color flowers! Truly, we are living in the strange and glorious future with flowers that float in bowls of water and magically change color.

After purchasing an equally exciting teal hurricane vase from Target, I gathered my supplies on a garbage bag on the floor of my apartment. To begin the process, I immediately fumbled the bag the water lily came in, tumbling it end over end to the floor in a spectacular firework-esque spray of dirt and twine. Shit. Now I had a 50/50 shot of plunking this net bag in right side up. I decided the top was the side that appeared to have some sort of brainy growth beginning to sprout out of it. After all, most people have brainy cranial growths. And yes, I'm aware of the fact that plants sprout various appendages from both ends, and that the disgusting brain growth did look a lot more like roots now that I think about it, dammit, but what's done is done. It needs full sun so it steals some of Sasha's recently recovered sunny window real estate, and I keep my fingers crossed that I didn't doom my new plant friend to an upside down watery grave.

Now I've got to prepare for my weekend guest, Bailey. If you're worried about her safety based on the previous story, you need not fear. I've spent more time with fauna than I have with flora. Besides, it's much easier to tell if a Labrador Retriever is right-side-up. I'm sure we'll be fine.

Update: Hooray! I think I picked the right side! Of the plant!

What...

the hell.

The Past Few Days

A few days ago, my sister Laura sent me a card she made.

She should start a greeting card business, g's.

Yesterday I walked full-force into the hook on the back of a bathroom stall door. It looks kind of like I have a tattoo of a nondescript bruise on my arm and it hurts like a bitch.

Tonight I was doing the dishes, and while I was scrubbing a pot a rogue piece of broccoli leapt out of the soapy water onto the handle. For a split second I was absolutely terrified. Yeah, of broccoli. I thought it was a mutant praying mantis or something.

Ooh, and my sister's gonna have another baby! So that's exciting, although it's not like my title changes. Maybe I'll add another 'a' to the word 'aunt' for every niece or nephew my sisters pop out. Yahoo for me, I'm gonna be an aaunt!

The Creature

There is a creature that lives somewhere on my floor. Close to my apartment, if my aural depth perception does not deceive me.

All I know about the creature is that it has the shriek of a squeaky dog toy being stepped on. Not very intimidating, you might say. Yeah, you're right. But it is annoying. This thing shrieks constantly. Not normal baby cries, just squeaky toy wails. Normally this isn't a problem, but if I'm trying to study in quiet, this quickly drives me insane. I have yet to lay eyes on this being, but if voice is any indication it has no mouth, only a small vent that causes air to squeal as it rushes in or out. The very thought of this malformed maw horrifies me.

Yes, I know it's probably a child. I think I woke it up one night when I slammed lettuce onto my counter to break its lettuce-neck and make a salad. And I don't care.

Having said that, it's probably some kid with a chromosome abnormality that results in this hideous vocal permutation whose parents struggle daily with the difficulty of raising an atypical child in such a cruel, unforgiving world.

Either way, it' s damn annoying.

The One-Blog Summary of Five Months Two Days Sixteen Hours Nine Minutes and Thirty Seconds

I know, I know.

Kim and Denise came to visit, and then I cat-whispered Sasha into shutting the hell up. I bet Kim and Denise wish those events were switched around.

I attended supernumerary orientations, class started, and my head began to fill with trisomies, monosomies and the exquisitely worthless study of epidemiology.

I did laundry for the first time only to have some bastard steal my peach-scented dryer sheets when left alone for thirty seconds. Thirty effing seconds. So I left an angry post-it note in the hall where they were stolen (childish, yes, but it made me feel better) which I later found stuck to a single non-peach smelling (yeah, I smelled it to check) dryer sheet. Smartasses. I spent the next few days surreptitiously sniffing fellow elevator passengers for any scent of thieving bastardism - to no avail.

We started medical communications, a class where we hold fake exam sessions with fake patients. Hilarity ensued when we were encouraged to make up solutions to their problems. Heh. I miss that class for many, many reasons.

My car was cruelly and viciously and okay FINE superficially violated while innocently parked on Lake Shore Drive. Grrr.

My mom sent me new peach dryer sheets.

Classes continued: PS continued to be worthless, epi still sucked, genetic lecture series and journal club continued to be easy stretches of no work on my part, intro to genetic counseling was still ruining my otherwise free Fridays. Oh and all the while, I was doing four hours of work study a week in the neuro department, conveniently located across the street from the icebox that is Lurie.

I got a sweet parking spot in the garage. The precious is safe.

Thanksgiving. Kara had the Iraq war explained to her and her only question was about how different countries communicate with each other. Her suggestion was calling cards. Ate food, was thankful.

More classes.

Finals... ugh. Then my bus pass betrayed me briefly before deciding we could be BFF for twelve more hours - then it was entirely dead to me. I hung its carcass on my bulletin board.

After that day of mind-bending tiredness, Jenna the sister came to visit for a few days. We did some shopping, saw Wicked, did some more shopping and nearly froze to death. This last occurred on more than one occassion, one of which involved a zoo, Christmas (sorry, holiday) lights and animals that stayed out of view in their shelters and were therefore smarter than the two of us.

Christmas break. Laura had her foot removed, or a bone removed, or something, and couldn't walk all through break. We watched a lot of DVDs, so I got completely caught up on Grey's Anatomy just in time to have no new episodes thanks to the writer's strike. Dominated numerous games of Xbox 360 SceneIt. Went out to eat, hot-tubbed, slept, and generally had a great, relaxing break.

Then it was back to school, thankfully now with a puffy and furry and long new coat in an acceptable color.

More classes, blah blah blah.

Bad weather consistently being built up to epic blizzard proportions only to have the green radar masses miss me entirely, much to my eternal disappointment. We did get a preemptive snow day in anticipation of a storm that never came. Pretty great to have a mid-week day off, though.

Happy hour was reinstated, and the peasants rejoiced.

Mrs. Kim flew in for a visit instead of going to some dumb tropical destination. Good choice.

And then - rotations began, and in this time of no sleep and no free time, I was inspired to resurrect and update this blog. So that's a quick recap of my grad school experience thus far. Of course there's more, but in the interest of time and privacy (which is a DAMN shame, because I could spin some fantastic tales about certain... things) we'll have to leave it at that.

Anyway, I'm really going to try hard to update regularly, and by all means send some abuse my way if I'm slacking off. Nice abuse. Encouraging abuse. In the form of flowery prose and flowers. I've got enough stress already.