Charting the uncharted
Sure, I’m not completely sure when I’ll graduate, it’s still a bit of a mystery to be honest, but I’m hopeful and regardless of when I THINK it will happen, I need to plan for what comes next. So far there’s more options than I would’ve first thought and because of that, there’s a whole lot of stuff that needs to happen between now and when the big day comes. Which also means making choices about where I want to go. Thankfully, I got some news that makes me excited about the future, but there’s still a bit of a hang up, okay lot’s of hang ups, nevertheless, you don’t know if you don’t try.
(more…)The long-term effects of COVID
Sometimes things just work out a particular way. Two days ago I got the bivalent COVID vaccine and that same day Nature Medicine released a new paper on the long-term effects of COVID infection. The paper has already been getting a lot of attention and as you would imagine people are quickly trying to downplay the implications, because the facts are not looking good to those who want to minimize COVID. In fact, at this point ignoring the dangers is ignoring reality and sadly people seem to be okay with pushing that ignorance. So let’s talk COVID… again.
(more…)COVID Vaccine: The first bivalent shot update!
Well it’s been roughly 36 hours or so since my latest vaccination, the bivalent COVID shot and since this is still something being rolled out to the general public, I wanted to document my reactions to the vaccine to keep people in the loop. I think the latest vaccine is pretty widely available at this point, so please make your appointment to get it soon! So that being said, let’s talk about how I’m doing now a day and a half later.
(more…)The hidden support system
I don’t feel like I bring much to the table as a friend. I mean a co-worker, sure. I feel pretty confident in my ability to do my job. It’s like the one thing I feel confident about, but human interaction has always been a struggle. I just assume generally speaking my relationship with people ends where our collaboration ends. But sometimes we get shocked into remembering that isn’t always the case. In this case, it was because I had an emergency this morning.
(more…)Summer conference!
Add one more thing to my to-do list, but not in a bad way exactly. It’s summer time, which means it’s time for the annual summer conference we hold at work. This is an “internal” conference run by the hospital for all the students and summer interns we have. It’s fairly large and gives us all a chance to share our science and see what other labs are doing in the hospital. What’s nice is that this sometimes leads to really cool collaborations (we recently did one actually).
(more…)A big result
I’m stepping away from my planned sharing of the notes from my lecture to bring breaking news! For those who don’t understand what’s going on, a while ago I had an idea, a “big idea” that I’m convinced will be the thing I’m known for… if it works. And our first attempt was not great. In fact, we got absolutely nothing. The second and third attempts however we were ready and it looked like we had something. The question is what did we have?
(more…)How to save a life
You’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean and you’re taking on water. You suddenly find yourself with your head barely above the water in the middle of nowhere. The depths of the ocean here are unfathomable, you’re tired, you hurt, the ocean keeps fighting your every move. You’re one wave away from death. No salvation is coming because this is depression and to everyone around you, you look perfectly normal.
(more…)Mental health and medication
Mental illness is like any other issue with the body. There are effects from it, there are treatments for it, and like someone who’s diabetic, you (probably) lack the correct balance of chemicals in the brain and there are medications for that. Of course we live in a society where a small, but vocal, group of people are pushing for “purity.” You don’t need medication, you can just eat healthy, think your way through, change your attitude. That is a lie and one that is deadly. You cannot fix mental illness through diet and exercise anymore than you could ask a diabetic to start producing insulin on their own.
(more…)The myth of “better”
It’s somehow Friday, finally. It’s been one hell of a week and things are slowly ramping up so it’s only going to get worse. There are a lot of moving parts happening right now and I’m just trying to keep a handle on things, so if mental health seems to be the theme of the week, then well it’s with good reason. Also it’s mental health awareness month. Which, somewhat ironically, I was not aware of until recently. So the theme of my life fits the month I guess.
(more…)The mental health stigma
You don’t look depressed. Chances are if you struggle with depression you’ve heard that once or twice, or dozens of times on a seemingly never ending loop. If you have a broken bone you can be diagnosed via an x-ray or CT. If you have cancer, there are blood tests or MRI scans that can catch it. If you get sick, rapid tests or PCR will tell you if it’s COVID. But how do you diagnose depression?
(more…)Fighting to live
Medication roulette, it’s what I call the process I started over a decade ago. It’s the process where you start a medication, wait weeks/months for side effects or benefits from it, inevitably stop because something serious happens, and then the painful, literally, process of coming off only to go to the next. If you’re lucky this process is quick, you try your hand at the roulette wheel and you walk away slightly better than when you stepped up. Or if you’re like me, you play like a gambling addict hoping for the magical win. But what if you found it, then had it taken away?
(more…)The OR waltz
It’s back to the OR I go! Which means exhausting times ahead, but also very exciting times. It’s been months since our last OR experiment and things have been shelved, literally, equipment has been packed away because we weren’t using it. So it’s time to once again to shake out the equipment and do our familiar dance with the clinical staff.
(more…)Burnout and mental health
After yesterday’s post on the whole match situation, I figure it’s probably time to talk about burnout. Because truthfully when you work yourself past your limit and you get even a small rejection, much less a rejection of that magnitude, you’re setting yourself up for a bad time. As a society we are told to push ourselves, to work harder, to “grind” as much as we can because only then will the system acknowledge our worth and reward us for our efforts. It’s a lie and we all know it, but propaganda is a powerful thing.
(more…)Match, SOAP, and Suicide
Well how could I forget to talk about match? Unlike previous years, I’ve got several friends who are anxiously waiting or at least were waiting, to find out if they got matched or not. The medical system is broken and match is part of the problem, but for those who aren’t in it, you may not understand what match even is or why it’s important. In fact, if you don’t follow medical students on twitter for example, you may never even realize match was happening.
(more…)In defense of pain management
Well this seems to be coming up a lot lately. One of the things about working in a hospital is you get to see a lot of different opinions and cases from doctors from all areas of expertise. It gives everyone a well rounded education and frankly no matter where you are in your career it’s always good to keep up with the state of the art in your field and adjacent fields. I’m in the neurosurgery department so we get to talk a lot about the brain and spinal cord, which means pain is a frequent topic.
(more…)Insomnia and other sleep disorders
That feeling when you’re tired all day, you lie down to finally get some rest and you’re suddenly wide awake. Hypersomnia, parasomnia, insomnia, why does sleep have to be so complicated? Some days you want your brain to shut off and it fully agrees with you until the second it’s time to do just that. Unfortunately in life there are no easy answers, as much as we wish their were.
(more…)The chronic pain conundrum
Several days ago I ran into a group of people who work with chronic pain patients. I don’t remember how the conversation got started or why we ended up discussing treatment options, probably because of the work I’m doing, but the conversation stuck with me and it isn’t for good reasons. Let’s face it pain is a pain. Frankly we need pain in our lives, but even with the best things, moderation is key. So what happens when good pain pathways go bad?
(more…)Double OR experiments!
It’s official, I just got not one, but two new participants for our study. This will be happening next week and the scary part is they are both on the same day, so it will be more than a full day in the OR, like 12 hours or so for the whole day. Not all of that time will be spent in the OR, thankfully. Every attempt we’ve had thus far in the OR has gotten better and better, so if the pattern holds, we should have some very good data after this next round of participants and I will have more data than I know what to do with.
(more…)The fifth OR experiment
Well we did it. I finally have the first (mostly) complete dataset from a patient. Overall I think it went well and we got good data. Mistakes were made! But thankfully none of them derailed the project and overall I am happy with the outcome. Let’s get into what went wrong and what went right, because having some post surgical notes will help me next time we do our thing.
(more…)Update from the OR
No, I’m not updating this while I’m in the OR, but we had OR attempt number five as a maybe today and I have good news. We managed to get a yes at the last minute and got some interesting data. It’s all very exciting, so now I need to dig around and see what we found. For sake of remembering, let’s run through how today went!
(more…)Another OR experiment… maybe
I got a random email yesterday from hospital-PI that I didn’t understand and I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on, but it looks like experiment number five may be happening as early as Monday! It will be an early morning and a long day, but it will be worth it, assuming it happens. Like everything in my life at the moment, we’re not 100% sure that we will be able to attend.
(more…)Sometimes things get cancelled
Today was a big day. We got the equipment ready, the patient consented, and everyone on the clinical side of things was on the same page we were on. Things were going well. Surprisingly well in fact, that should’ve been the first sign something was going to go wrong. This time it wasn’t our fault though! Sometimes you just can’t catch a break, so maybe next time.
(more…)Off to the OR!
Tomorrow is the big day, our second experiment and while I’m a little nervous, I’m also excited to see what we can do. Last time around we had some issues… okay a lot of issues, but that’s because it was the first time we’ve ever tried something like this. This time around we worked with the team that will be in the OR with us so we know what they are doing and this time they know what we are doing. Basically we’re aiming for a whole lot less drama and a whole lot more useable data, meaning any usable data!
(more…)The how to of presentation design
With my three minute talk coming up (more here) I need to design my two slides and get my poster set. Since I don’t like doing more work than needed, instead of trying to figure out the order of things and blog about something else, I wanted to go over how I would be presenting my science, both for the talk and my poster. Ideally this would help others, but mostly it’s for me since I could use the format in the future. I would copy from my previous talks, but I like to mix it up a little and this isn’t quite as formal as some of the other talks I’ve had to give.
(more…)The surgical scramble!
Today was an… interesting day. Saturday I mentioned that today I would be in the OR again, it feels like I’ve been living there for a bit now and I have to say I’m enjoying it, but things were a little more hectic than I had originally anticipated. I had arranged for everything to be ready well before the surgery took place, but as it turns out that wasn’t what happened and I was left to scramble in order to get everything working.
(more…)Papers, experiments, and the week ahead
It’s going to be a busy week and the weekend has only just started. While I plan on taking some time to myself this weekend, I am going to be prepping for the week ahead today since tomorrow is halloween. There’s a lot of interesting stuff happening this week, so today I want to round up all the odds and ends to give you an idea of what the week will look like, but also to help me organize my thoughts as I get ready.
(more…)Award interview and project update
Yesterday was the big interview between my school-PI, surgeon-PI, and myself. It was significantly longer than I expected it to be, but it was also strangely focused on me. That was completely unexpected, so I felt a little awkward, but I did it and we’re all very excited to start my project. I have some thoughts about the interview, but I also realized I haven’t really spoke about my “super secret” technique in a while so some of the newer followers may not even know what I’m talking about (don’t worry, it’s a super secret).
(more…)Septoplasty update or so you’re having your splints removed!
I can breathe! It’s a magical feeling when for the past week I couldn’t use my nose at all. Okay, I could breathe out, on occasion, if I were careful, but now I can breathe and it feels so nice, particularly on my throat, which is still a little raw from the week prior. Since I’ve made it on the other side of things (for the second time now) I think we can do a quick update on the lastest recovery, but more importantly I found out the information about the ear graft I needed. As always, sharing is caring, so let’s do this!
(more…)An interesting experiment, maybe
I was debating about sharing this since I’m not sure if it will happen or not. More importantly, like all the experiments and stuff I do around here (or at least it feels that way) I can’t talk about it in detail. Instead I can talk about why I’m excited about it in particular and why it may not even happen. Which, considering I’m still trying to recover from surgery, may not be a bad thing!
(more…)So you’ve had a septoplasty
Fine, I guess I should share some of my story since I share everything else and this would be useful to anyone else needing the same thing. Technically speaking what was done was a combination of surgeries, but I’m going out on a limb and thinking the good ol’ septoplasty is the one most people will be having and so that’s the topic of the day.
(more…)The award announcement
Well it’s official, my project got funded. It’s a little hollow since we knew ahead of time that it was going to be awarded, but now that it’s official we can make a big deal about it. By we I mean my school-PI and our collaborator, who I guess is technically my latest Co-PI, so now I have three PI’s and you thought my life was complicated enough already, didn’t you?
(more…)Surgical recovery, yet again!
Well today is officially day one of my recovery. Yesterday (here) I had my…. well it’s in the double digits that’s for sure, surgery. I was spoiled this year as I only had a single surgery, normally I go in once every six months for something and I’ve had that routine for the last six or so years, so yeah double digit surgery count, but I don’t remember the exact number, I think it’s 13 (spooky!) in any case I lived, despite the VA hospitals best efforts.
(more…)If you’re reading this, it’s already too late.
How’s that for a spooky title? Normally I write my posts the same day you all get to read them. It’s a nice system that keeps me just stressed enough to keep going. I’m only semi-joking. This post however was written yesterday, or today for me. The reason is simple, if you’re reading this then I’ve already been whisked off to surgery again. Not that this wasn’t a planned thing, but I didn’t want to make a big fuss about it since I have two surgeries every year as it stands. This year it’s just one so I hold out hope that means the six month shuffle of something new being painful/swollen/etc. is slowly coming to an end.
(more…)The legacy we leave behind
Well it’s still that time of the year for me, the time where my anxiety is pegged at an 11, the stupid feelings inside my head keep telling me others would be better off without me, and honestly I start to believe it because who do I have besides myself? It’s exhausting, painful (in the literal sense), and I hate it. This time of the year also seems to come with a fair bit of bad luck. In this case, another death.
(more…)A senseless death
I’m angry. Mostly I’m hurt, but I’m very angry. Angry about misinformation, angry about lies, and people wanting to profit from killing others. I’m angry that there is a small, but incredibly vocal group of anti-vaccine, anti-mask, pro-death cultists basically that are causing people to question if the COVID vaccine is safe. And today I found out we lost someone close to us because of that misinformation.
(more…)The death of hope
Maybe I’m being over dramatic, who knows. It’s been a struggle and yes, today is not a good day. Not that many days around this time of the year are good, but today in particular is a bad one. Depression sucks and the thing about depression is that it’s hard to explain to others, especially if you’ve never had to deal with clinical depression or if you’re like me, had to live with chronic treatment resistant depression.
(more…)A rough landing
My joints hurt, like all of them. It feels like stabby burny pain. It’s not fun, but I’ve seen this kind of thing happen just once before in my life (here). Spoiler, it’s somehow related to stress, the last time this happened I was very stressed out and this time it’s back, but worse. It’s not a fun time for me obviously, so today is a mixed bag, both good news and bad.
(more…)So you’re nervous about the COVID vaccine
Welcome. First I guess we should make it clear, I’m vaccinated, I’ve been vaccinated, and I got vaccinated early on. If you’re reading this and not a regular around here, then you’re probably looking for some good information about the vaccine to help assuage your fears. The good news is that if you’re here you probably want someone to tell you that it’s okay, that the vaccine is safe, and that you should get it. Well I’m happy to do that for you.
(more…)The week ahead
There’s a lot happening this week, it SHOULD be the last week I’m technically jobless. Right now I’m not getting paid by anyone, not by the school, not by the hospital, basically I’m living off the last paycheck I got at the beginning of the month and the next one may not be here until close to the end of next month. If something happens and my start date gets pushed back, well that would mean that I would have no money for anything. That would be bad.
(more…)The transition to clinical research
Today should be interesting… it’s my onboarding appointment, which is one of the last steps I need to complete to be hired at the hospital. There’s a lot going on in life at the moment, some of which is personal so I won’t be sharing that here, but let’s just say everything has been incredibly stressful. Oh and since I need to get the appointment done this week if I want to start on time, this was the last day I can get it done.
(more…)The uncertain future
My Co-PI is leaving! Or maybe he’s not? But he could be?! I don’t even know. It doesn’t help that he has no idea and there’s no real deadline for him to make a choice, it’s whenever he’s ready. In fact, we currently have a line graph with his daily percentage on staying or leaving. I wish I was joking. It’s not just my future I’m worried about, there are others in the lab, most of us wouldn’t be able to make the journey to his new workspace, even if we wanted to (and trust me when I say if I could, I would).
(more…)A small success
It was a leap of faith. There were no good choices, but it was the best of options in a string of bad options. I could either work full time in my main-PI’s lab, pulling me away from the clinical research I love, or I could take a job in my Co-PI’s lab. The catch was to take the job with my Co-PI I would have to apply, wait, and go through the onboarding process. That would mean I wouldn’t be getting paid, which would be okay for a few weeks, but longer and I could be in trouble. Nothing is finished yet, but I’ve gotten some good news.
(more…)Sometimes it rains
Brains are wild. I mean we have this misshapen jello blob stuck in our head and it somehow gives us the ability to be aware. We exist and think, feel, reason, all the stuff that makes us who we are. Brains are great, except when they aren’t. Depression is a horrible thing, which lives in the brain. You can’t “just be happy” anymore than someone could just be rich. Obviously when you live with chronic depression you got a dud of a brain. It may have to do with genetics, environmental factors, the way we were raised, or maybe it’s just horrible luck, but out of all the organs we can fix or replace, the brain is not one of them. You’re stuck as you and sometimes that sucks.
(more…)COVID Vaccine: The third shot update!
It’s been over 36 hours since my third dose of COVID vaccine. For those who don’t know, I was designated as a vulnerable population and the veterans administration (VA) is apparently giving out the third dose to us now and to the general veteran population in the next month or two. Since I was one of the first getting my last two doses, I thought it would be wise to chronicle my experience.
(more…)COVID Vaccine: The third shot!
It’s official, I got my third COVID vaccine shot. With delta ramping up and the long-term effectiveness of the vaccine being questioned there has been a push for a third shot. mRNA vaccines had the promise of being easily adaptable to new strains, it’s why we’ve been doing research on them since the mid-60’s, so it would’ve been prudent to adjust the vaccine to compensate for the new pervasive strain. Alas! It was not meant to be, at least not yet. It’s a little frustrating, but I am hopeful new variants of the vaccine will be forthcoming. So why did I get the shot?
(more…)A funeral is for the living
The steady climb of the death toll from the pandemic is once again ramping back up as more people are exhausted from living like… well like we are living in a pandemic. Misinformation and outright lies are being passed around as truth. What’s worse is the people arguing that COVID is not an issue treat the incredibly high and incredibly senseless amount of death that is a direct result of callous disregard for others as an acceptable price for the right to be selfish. I saw enough senseless death in the military to want to be the direct cause of more. But maybe that’s just me.
(more…)You still need to wear the damn mask
I know, it’s been a long pandemic. I’m tired, your tired, so, so many people are dead. It’s a lot, hell it’s a plot of dozens of horror movies, but it’s not over. So once again I am begging my lovely readers to wear the damned mask. I know there is a lot of confusing information out there. Some of it says don’t bother with the mask, some tells you wear one if you’re not vaccinated, it feels mixed signals sure sure. Well let me make it incredibly simple, wear the damn mask. You put on pants when you go outside, wear the damn mask.
(more…)Technical problems
While people worried about the robot apocalypse, I’m not. If I need to randomly turn my router off and back on again for it to work properly I doubt Skynet will somehow gain sentience and take over the world without someone needing to go in and reboot it from time to time. Technology is an imperfect thing, like biology, but we expect technology to be better than us at what we need it to do. Today we spent almost an hour doing a little dance with the technology in the lab trying to get all the pieces to play nicely. The robot apocalypse will be short lived.
(more…)My talk is today and you’re all invited!
Okay so I wanted to update everyone on how my first lecture went yesterday since I only had a few short days to throw everything together and it was a mad panic to the end. Unfortunately we cannot go into detail today! That’s because today is my “I’m giving a talk” talk (which I wrote about here). It’s free to watch, my talk is roughly four minutes long and is a nice little rundown of some of the work I do. So today I figure I will go into a bit of detail and should you be so inclined to attend you’ll get the chance to chat with me in person about my work! Yep, I’m breaking anonymity yet again, but it’s for a good reason.
(more…)And nothing was wrong with me…
Last summer I had some sort of autoimmune thing kick up. Frankly I’m not sure it was autoimmune or what the hell it was, but it hurt, left me feeling exhausted, and caused my hands, face, and elbows to form raised red spots that later peeled off (here). It was incredibly painful, made me question the minor breakouts of whatever it was that had been going on for a good ten years or so prior, and was a red flag that I was not okay. But the pandemic has been ongoing so getting attention from the VA, which is notoriously awful, had been difficult. Had been, I finally got the chance to see someone.
(more…)
Lunatic Laboratories 