Gems & Giants

I always get excited when new beads are on the way. I just ordered materials that will be used to make our first ever fall collection (at the AARI Gift Shop) and I can't wait for them all to arrive. Autumn foliage and Halloween served prominently as inspirations in my designs so you can expect to see lots of chalcedony (carnelian, sardonyx, bloodstone, agate, etc.), volcanic scoria, tiger eye, garnet, red jasper, and fire opal Swarovski crystal accented by rich gold and copper in our inventory this fall. My heart is literally fluttering with anticipation; almost like falling in love! Seriously!

That's not all I have to be excited about... Today, I start working on GUVs, otherwise known as giant unilamellar vesicles. After two solid months of amino acid and lipid adsorption isotherms (and my first lot of publishable data), I am soooooo ready for change. That's the thing with me-- I need to circulate projects every so often to ward off boredom and minimize frustration. In the past, I've worked for people who were content to have me do nothing but reproduce other people's results over and over and over. Not only did this stifle my creative spirit, but it effectively shut down any opportunities I would have had to publish original research. Trust me. If innovation is what your pioneering spirit craves, then the life of a lab technician isn't for you. If you don't mind the monotony and you'd rather not be published, then maybe it is. Thankfully for me, my PI seems to want to move forward as much as I do (well, most of the time, anyway).

GUVs can be up to 100um in diameter!

So, I expect to spend the day in my nice, comfy office pouring over the papers of my predecessors and trying to figure out what I need to get started. It would be nice to have this project off the ground before classes start in just a few weeks. Dr. Sahai and I still haven't discussed which courses she'd like me to take (she's been on medical leave for the last few weeks) so it could be anything from fluff to the hardest science in the catalog. One thing she did already make clear however, is that she expects me to keep those As rolling in! No pressure though, right?

Welcome to the “A” factory! My office in it’s current state.

Changes at AARI

I've come to a decision regarding AARI and the gift shop. Since coming to UW-Madison, I have had very little time to pursue the development of AARI. My research activities in the Sahai lab require over 60 hours a week; leaving little time for much else. With the start of the academic year almost upon us, I have decided to introduce changes which will allow me sufficient time to keep up with my scholarly activities while maximizing any remaining time to continue working towards AARI's vision of establishing a research laboratory and museum for astrobiology in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

I feel it would be most beneficial to our cause to shift our focus to fundraising and outreach efforts almost exclusively for at least this next year. Since it will be at least a few years until my doctoral degree is complete and I will be able to return to Canada full-time, this change should not drastically limit our potential and may even give us more options to expand in the future. This brings me to changes where the AARI Gift Shop is concerned. I have decided that based on customer feedback, it would be in our best interest to move away from lower-cost, simpler items and instead focus on high-quality, one-of-a-kind pieces.

It has also been difficult to find bead suppliers locally in Madison that offer the raw materials we need at a reasonable price. To circumvent this problem, all of our supplies will be ordered in from elsewhere. This means that we won't be able to maintain as large an inventory as we have now. To preserve variety, we are also going to start offering items on a seasonal basis. Every three months, all pieces will be swapped out of inventory for new ones. This should help us to keep wait-times (between the time at which an order is placed and the date upon which orders arrive at their final destinations) down to a minimum because we will only have to keep certain stones in stock; those featured during a particular season. This fall we will only be keeping sizeable quantities of stones with colors which reflect the season. Of course, we will still be able to fill custom orders but that will come with the expectation that customers may have to wait an additional week or two for supplies to reach us.

I hope to start making changes to the website this weekend and our new supplies should begin to arrive within days. I'm not yet sure of the precise date upon which the change to seasonal stocking will occur but I'm hoping for late-August/early September. That, of course, will depend on my workload in the Sahai lab.

These changes to our online store should help to ramp up our fundraising efforts because each item sold will be able to bring in more money for our start-up fund per piece and it will be easier to keep up with the pace at which orders come in while I'm engaged in my research and other scholarly activities. I really do hope this works out in the long run. I thoroughly enjoy making jewelry. It's a good creative outlet and stress reliever for me and it gives me a way to raise money for astrobiology without compromising my other responsibilities here at UW. I only hope that economic recovery is just around the corner so that even more people can enjoy our jewelry and help us raise money for research at the same time.

Healthcare Reform: Failure is not an option!

Perhaps the most difficult thing about living with a chronic medical condition in this country is the rising cost of healthcare. I have never counted myself among those less fortunate who do not have health insurance (with the exception of my first few weeks at UW due to a bureaucratic snafu). Yet, the financial fall-out associated with all of the charges my current and previous insurance carriers refused to cover makes it very difficult to maintain even the most basic standard of living on a grad student stipend (which is more than adequate for everyone else).

My current monthly payments for past medical expenses come to just under $400 per month. Add to that this month's unexpected healthcare costs (again, items that my insurance wouldn't cover) of $487 and that's more than half my take-home pay before I even get to covering rent, food, and utilities! Millions of Americans are confronted by this reality each day and there is little doubt that the stress which results from having to live this way exacerbates their symptoms. How are people supposed to be able to take care of themselves when they are forced to choose between housing, food and healthcare? Most of us associate senior citizens with this plight but medical debt favors no one demographic over others.

One third of young adults are currently uninsured in this country. Although they are the least likely to become seriously ill or injured, readers don't have to look any further than the borders of this blog for an example of a young adult who became seriously ill after two decades of good health (who gets pancreatic tumors at 22?). If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. Most people unfortunate enough to get sick as young adults are forced to file for bankruptcy simply because they are too old to have anyone else bear the burden of their financial obligations and too young to have accumulated the level of savings required to insulate themselves from financial ruin (on entry-level wages, no less).

It's looking less and less likely that true healthcare reform is on the way. I sincerely doubt that a bunch of fat-cat politicians in Washington have the capacity to understand just how urgent this issue is and how it will benefit this nation as a whole. People with chronic illnesses are not deadweight and no one is looking for a handout. It is impossible to measure how much productivity and homegrown talent is lost to the overwhelming cost of healthcare. How many people are forced to put their lives on hold even after they recover from illness because they cannot recoup the costs of their medical bills? Medical debt is, by far, the leading cause of bankruptcy in this country. How can we justify playing Russian Roulette with our collective future like this? I think anything less than swift, decisive action is simply unforgivable. This country needs affordable healthcare now!

Life is Pain

For those living with chronic medical conditions, setbacks are always though. They serve to remind us that no matter how well-controlled our symptoms are, we won't ever be "cured" of our conditions. Last week, I experienced several visitations by my previous life; the one I had before coming to Madison. I was forced to choose between accepting one fate and pressing on to forge another from the ashes of its less desirable twin.

Following all the medical appointments and tests I've had to endure lately, I returned to the lab (finally) free from interruptions to pursue my research at full tilt. Slowly, I began to notice changes. Beginning at around 2pm each day, within an hour of eating lunch, a gnawing ache settled into the depths of my abdomen and slowly began to grow in intensity. Two hours later, the pain peaked and consumed nearly all of my attention, making it almost impossible to focus on my work. Over the next 4 hours, it would fade until it was gone, just after I arrived home. At first, I thought the pain clinic I went to had made some sort of mistake during the pump refill I'd had just the previous week. They reduced the concentration of Dilaudid I was receiving, but not the overall daily dose. This means that my dose should have been the same but that I would come more frequently for refills (a measure meant to preserve the drug's potency and reduce the risk for spinal granulomas). I suspected that perhaps a miscalculation was introduced during the telemetry stage of the refill and that my pump simply required reprogramming.

However, when I went back to the clinic, medical staff did not find any errors and opted to simply introduce a bolus dose that to be given at 1pm each day (before the pain had an opportunity to take root). As it turned out, they did the right thing. You see, for the first time since starting in the lab, I was able to work at full capacity. I was on my feet more, at the bench longer, and greater physical demands were being placed on my body each day. Most people would simply begin to feel tired under these circumstances but in me (no longer accustomed to working 60+ hours per week), damaged nerves rebelled once I pushed past the threshold and they were screaming for relief. After the bolus dose was added, I was able to work an additional 6 hours before my pain returned. Typically, by that time of day, I have either returned home or am at least in transit. Certainly, this means I won't be able to work later into the evenings without a second bolus but still, it's an improvement over what I would otherwise have been able to do.

\Most of the time, I don't think about my pain. Over the last few years (since getting my pump) I've worked hard to create a new foundation for my personal identity; one divorced from my identification as a chronic pain patient. Since I now spend the majority of my time being "Heather the scientist" and not "Heather the sick person", I have begun to settle into a role which would have me behave as a person who does not have chronic pain. I was lulled into a false sense of security so to speak, and forgot my limitations.

There is also a part of me that feels like I still have something to prove. I know from past experience that there are those within my chosen profession who believe that people like me have no place in science and that I was meant to subsist on disability for the rest of my life. While it is true that most chronic pain patients find themselves rendered unable to work at some point, most of those people are in that situation because their pain is not well-controlled.

There is a pervasive philosophy in medicine, no matter how misguided and destructive it seems, that we should "learn to live with our pain" since we aren't ever going to be cured, we should do our best to accept things the way they are and try to go on living our lives in their current state. Trust me when I say that a life without purpose is no life at all. There is no quality of life for those who suffer with pain so crippling that it prevents them from working.

Time is at a Premium

The last week has been my busiest yet and all I really remember about the last few days are the experiments I was trying to cram into them. Now that I've gotten comfortable with amino acid isotherms, I've turned the bulk of my attention towards mastering lipid adsorption isotherms. My first round of experiments ended disasterously when a volumetic flask I used to make one of my solutions got contaminated somehow, resulting in an impenetrable, inky-black semi-solid substance that was of no use to me (and encrusted my test tubes like char). In an attempt to make up for lost time, I launched a series of parallel experiments which, under normal circumstances, I would have done sequentially. So far, so good; no more black muck! I haven't finished analyzing all the data yet, but I hope to have everything plotted in another day or two-- so long as I don't get interrupted again. As it is, I can't completely move forward with my lipid experiments because my PI is more interested in my work with amino acids at the moment. She is always coming up with extra things to add and new things to try. Sometimes, the results are fuzzy enough to warrant a redo but thankfully, that hasn't happened too often. Today, we had to place this project on hold because we ran out of a reagent called Ninhydrin; can't run assays without it. It's probably just as well anyway since I've been falling behind on my reading and could probably use a few days at my desk (yeah, right! Not with lipid experiments I can still do!).

I must say though, that I'm starting to feel bad about aspects of my personal life that are starting to get swallowed up by research. I can't remember the last time I visited my own website, made any jewelry, or chatted with my friends online. Someone even approached me to express an interest in doing some research together and I still haven't found time to get back to him about it. Even my blog writing is suffering as more and more data screams for analysis while I'm sitting on the bus (where I write my blog entries). I also keep forgetting to take care of certain personal errands like getting my prescriptions renewed or returning borrowed items. In some ways, I feel like I'm starting to lose myself. One of my old professors once stressed the importance of having a life outside of graduate school. Since I didn't really have much of a life during those years I was sick, I sort of got used to going without a lot of things. I couldn't afford to go out or have hobbies and I barely had enough energy to get through the day, let alone do anything extra.

Up On The Soapbox

So... Here I am sitting at UW Hospital having even MORE of my time wasted! Apparently, whoever scheduled my CT-scans screwed up royally! They told me that I was going to have them done at the hospital and then turned around and had them scheduled for Research Park on the other end of town! Seriously! What is wrong with people? Haven't they cost me enough time? They suggested (when I checked in at UW Hospital) that I could still make the appointment at my original location if I drove straight over.... Great! So whose car can I take to do that? Yours? Why does everyone assume I have a car? If I wasn't still paying out the nose for past medical expenses, maybe I could have bought several cars by now!

Since this time-waster was the pain doc's bright idea in the first place and then staff created this additional burden... At least the receptionist at UW Hospital knew what she was doing and squeezed me in between the patients who were scheduled properly. I'm just doubly frustrated because my PI added more items to the (already massive) to-do list and as it was, I had no idea how I was going to finish everything. She didn't realize I had medical tests scheduled for the following day and gave me another day to get things done but still... I'm trying to work around another student's projects as well so it's not a matter of simply diving into my work at the drop of a hat; it takes an immense amount of planning & coordination.

Last night, I stayed up late to run some calculations for the new experiments and find a way to squeeze them in between the ones that were already on my agenda for today, tomorrow and the day after that. I'm sure my lab mate (who I share a lot of resources with) isn't particularly happy with me right now for trying to take over the lab. I'm hoping he had other things planned for the next few days--like data analysis, which can be done on his own laptop. Meanwhile, I'm stuck waiting here for a space to squeeze into. The only other alternative would have been to reschedule and that would definitely have made a much bigger mess than we already have! I figure I’d already lost time today so we might as well get it over with.

You can be sure that the next time a doctor wants me to take time from work for tests (when I'm asymptomatic), I will refuse on the grounds that my work has suffered enough! It's like they're trying to slowly suffocate my reputation in the lab before I even finish my first semester! Sure, they probably had their reasons but if my academic career dies, nothing else will matter. I live for science and if I'm not allowed to do it, if I'm forbidden to be myself, then all that hard work and preventative care will be for nothing. Besides, there is a large part of me that feels like I have something to prove.

Most patients in my situation leave their professions and never return. The general public tends to look at chronic pain patients a certain way and I want to completely dissolve that stereotype. Furthermore, I think it's important to give hope to others suffering from chronic pain. I want to show people that it is possible to have it all; that you can successfully shuffle medical responsibilities, professional obligations, fiscal crises and still find time to have a social life. Although, I have to say, that last item may be somewhat of a stretch. Between mounting expectations, a growing workload and constant interruptions, I'm finding it difficult to find time for myself.

As it is, I write all my blog entries on my smartphone while I'm on the go (usually on the bus or in waiting rooms). I never write from a desk. That's why there are long gaps between posts as well. I'm lucky if I can log in more than once a week (to post multiple entries at the same time, written on different days). So if you happen to notice lengthy periods where the blog isn't getting updates, you can be fairly certain that it's because I have too much work to do and too little time for my personal life. I'm also starting to worry about AARI's upkeep. I haven't had any time for the website, fundraising, or advertising lately. My poor volunteers haven't even gotten their stuff yet! I keep hoping things will settle down by "such-and-such-a-date" but then it never does...

Well, I guess that's the end of my writing for today; just lost one arm to an inconveniently-placed IV.

Overscheduled & Running Down

My resentment for having to take time away from research for medical appointments is reaching an all-time high. I have all these plans for getting back on schedule (yes, all the interruptions have put me behind), but I can't seem to find enough time (where others aren't using the equipment I need) to actually execute them! I just had my pump refilled today (getting there & back plus all the waits took all afternoon) and tomorrow morning I get to spend the whole morning at UW Hospital for CT-scans (yes, more than one) so I won't be able to start anything in the lab at all until I'm through there. Since most experiments take several consecutive days to do, I already know that the only hope I have of getting anything done this week is to sacrifice the weekend entirely. After all the running around, I could sure use a proper rest!

On top of that, there was talk at today's appointment of having me come in to discuss the films being taken tomorrow too! Don't these people realize I have to work? I don't have time for all this! How ridiculous is it to sacrifice an entire afternoon (a whole day's experiments) just to be told you're fine and the films are clear? Sheesh! I keep having to explain to everyone that I'm completely reliant on public transportation and can't just pick up and go to the other end of town whenever the mood strikes me. None of my medical appointments are within walking distance of the lab so I have to coordinate bus schedules (and my research) pretty far in advance. It's almost like they EXPECT to find trouble. I say, why poke your nose in the hornets nest?

I just don't want my PI to be disappointed when she comes back (she's away at the moment). Also, I don't want to be disappointed in myself. My undergraduate advisor always told me that I was too hard on myself and my lab mates seem fairly impressed with the speed at which I picked up new techniques but still... I can't seem to find a way to put that "to-do" list (my PI left for me) out of my mind. Maybe I'll feel better once I reach the halfway point... And I did lose a few weeks in the beginning to training so maybe I'm not as far behind as I think. Sure, I'll just keep telling myself that...

Here's a funny pic to cheer us up on a crappy, crabby day! Who doesn't like cute, chihuahua puppies?

More Spoons, Please!

Last night, I read a short story called, The Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino. Although it was originally written as a way to describe living with lupus to one of her healthy friends, it is just as applicable for anyone living with a chronic medical condition who finds themselves lacking the words to describe what daily life is like. To be honest, this piece actually brought me to tears. The beauty of this story is in it's simplicity; those living with serious medical conditions have to budget so much more than just money. There is never enough of anything so we are forced to go through life in "disaster mode" full-time.

Symptoms chew away at our physical resources, excess medical expenses dissolve our assets, the lack of understanding from those who are healthy eats away at our social support systems. Every single accomplishment, no matter how small, derives from extensive planning and preparation because despite our best efforts to stretch our limited resources to the fullest, we won't ever be able to accomplish everything we set out to do each day. Activities the healthy take for granted require Herculean efforts from those who are ill and so the battles we wage against the challenges of daily living go unnoticed.

I consider myself to be locked somewhere between the worlds of the sick and healthy. Before I got my pump, every aspect of my daily existence came with a cost. I had to decide whether to eat or ameliorate my pain. I had to decide whether to go out to lunch with my colleagues or cover the co-pay on my prescriptions. I had to decide whether I would take work home with me in the evening or go to work the next day. I never seemed to have enough of anything required to cover the most basic life necessities. Going without things considered by most to be "bare bones minimums", meant that I eventually grew accustomed to a life of deprivation.

Even after I got better, I still couldn't bring myself to emerge completely from "disaster mode". I plan my experiments at least a full week in advance (back-up plans included), I keep all of my workspaces in a highly organized state (can find anything I have in under 10 seconds), and before even coming to Madison, I had a list of concerns a mile long which centered around issues such as whether I could actually afford to move here and how much medical insurance should I purchase until UW's policy kicked in.

I chose my current residence on the basis of economics and proximity to the UW Hospital. I never buy anything that hasn't been on a list for at least a week and if I can't eat, cleanse with, or use an item for work, I don't buy it. In the event of a sudden financial crisis (i.e., surprise medical bills), I know what foods to slash from my grocery list and how to my juggle accounts in order to keep all the bills covered. I could grab every item I can't imagine living without in under 30 seconds if a tornado siren ever woke me in the middle of the night. I even have supplies so that in the event that I get really sick (to the point that I can't keep anything down) and can't get medical care (used to happen a lot), I can sustain my own life for a few weeks (once, I actually had to do this).

When it comes to that last item, why would I ever need to prepare for such a thing? Let me put it this way, you'd be surprised how many ER docs label chronic pain patients as drug seekers and turn them away. Since there aren't any tests to differentiate between addicts and everyone else, mistakes happen and at some point, every chronic pain patient has paid a steep price for it. You see where I'm going with this. I got so used to anticipating catastrophes, that I'm having trouble turning it off. I don't want to become completely carefree and ignorant of the risks around every corner-- this could be a very useful skill to have someday if I'm ever fortunate enough to have kids-- but I know I'm investing (wasting) a lot of time and energy that could otherwise go towards more productive endeavors. The evidence of my anxiety is everywhere... I keep everything, from my bench in the lab to the clothes in my closet at home, in a highly ordered state. My smart phone is crammed with lists, appointments and research documents (backups if my laptop ever dies). I keep backups of backups elsewhere and my computer is locked up like Ft. Knox.

I still document everything but I'm not as bad as I used to be. There was one lab I worked in where I trusted people so little, I kept a digital recorder running in my pocket all day long (there is no need here). You're probably laughing but trust me, I had a darned good reason to do it then! The point is that our behavior is shaped by our experiences. I'm gradually learning to loosen up & let go but it's a long, slow process. Maybe by the time I graduate, I will have gained much more than just a PhD... I'll have a sense of normality to go with it.

Share and Share Alike

Every lab has it's own suite of shared equipment. Often these items aren't cared for as much as those designated for use by an individual researcher. Since no single person is responsible for their maintenance, they often get covered in grime, go uncalibrated for extended periods of time, and "mysteriously break" or "stop working all by themselves". Shared items in the Sahai lab are generally well taken care of; perhaps one of the more beneficial side-effects that come with keeping the size of the lab down (fewer suspects when something goes awry). Still, there are other issues from which no lab is immune.

Every member of a lab has their own research projects; each with their own unique protocols and requirements. This means that even though some people may depend on the same piece of equipment, the ways in which they use it may conflict with the plans other people have for it-- whether that means modifying/programming an item for customization or needing it at a particular time for a given length of time (so that others can't use it). People either deal with these situations in one of two ways: 1) Pulling rank (seniority dictates priority) or 2) Trying to work through conflicts by planning in advance (discussing with others who needs what, when and for how long). The latter is generally preferred in this lab and usually, that seems to work fairly well for everyone.

Problems arise however, when someone in the "chain of custody" loses sight of what his/her colleagues need. In my case, someone shut off a high-temperature heat block I was using near the end of one of my experiments (specifically, I was studying the adsorption of DPPC on alpha-Al₂O₃). Once I realized what had happened, I spoke with the only other person who was in the lab with me that day. Rather than admitting it was an accident, I was assaulted by a torrent of lies and excuses in rapid succession which I found utterly insulting (this person was not a lab member, by the way).

Something many people don't realize about me is that I have always been very good at analyzing microexpressions. As an undergraduate, I also took a lot of psychology courses, where I gained an appreciation for signs of deception (and plenty of A's too). Sure I was disappointed that I'd have to start over because of someone else's mistake, but it was an accident. People make honest mistakes all the time and I can appreciate that. What really bothered me was the fact that this person preferred to lie about it, instead of apologize. It took this person over an hour to say they were sorry and even then, it was very hard for them to resist making excuses.

Test yourself on the METT!

So, if you ever find yourselves in a situation where you make an honest mistake that compromises someone else's work, the best thing to do is own up to it, apologize and offer to make ammends. If you are dishonest about your accidents and someone catches you, they could come to resent you for it and may not be willing to help you out in the future. Research groups really are like surrogate families; everyone is supposed to look out for everyone else. How would you be able to trust your siblings if you already know that they can't trust you? There is plenty of inter-lab rivalry in science already! Who needs bickering from within? Besides anything that raises your lab's status as a whole, makes it's individual members look good too!

Who are you and what do you do?

I can't tell you how happy I am that the weather finally cooled down. I can actually wear my hair down without worrying that the humidity will give it a reason to go wild. The temperature indoors feels about the same as it does outside so walking out the door isn't like hitting a wall of hot wind either. No one likes to stand around waiting for the bus in the hot, summer heat; makes the wait seem a lot longer than it really is--especially for this gal from Northern Ontario!


I spent most of the last two days on my feet almost non-stop. Now that I've gotten more comfortable with the all the new procedures I've learned, I've started running multiple experiments in parallel. Since I am also past the point of having to replicate previous experiments conducted by other people, the promise of future publications compels me to cram as much as I can into each day I spend in the lab. It hasn't been easy to get things done this past week with all the interruptions and appointments outside the lab. My PI laid down a concise plan for what she wanted accomplished and when she expected things to be done so it's important to me that I stay "ahead of the curve" so that when the next few interruptions come along, I don't fall behind schedule.

Not all PIs have the same expectations. Most of the people I worked for in the past didn't have deadlines and just about all of them kept me in the training/study reproduction phase a lot longer (which is frustrating for any scientist yearning for new discoveries and/or independence in the lab). If there's one thing I don't cope well with, it's feeling held back! Since I feel challenged and stimulated in this lab, I don't expect motivation to ever be a problem. I also enjoy being able to talk to my PI directly, instead of having to work my way up through an extensive hierarchy of post-docs, managers, and senior grad students. Dr. Sahai never makes us feel as though her time is "too important to waste on us". I have to admit though, I'm still trying to find a balance between sending her every data point as it comes in and not sending anything until it's requested. Some people are born "micro-managers" and others spread themselves so thin that they become "absentee PIs" (they have an office but hardly ever use it).

Being the first student in my class to arrive (the rest won't come until at least mid-August) also gives me the opportunity to get to know others in the department separately. Sometimes, that can be a bit spooky. It's gotten to be fairly typical for people I'd never met to greet me by name, know whose lab I was in and where I'd come from (schools & hometown). I guess it's fairly simple to remember just one person. What I find so striking is that people often seem to know more... like what I plan to do when I graduate. Most people are genuinely surprised when I tell them I'm keeping a blog, that I have my own business and make my own jewelry, etc. But they seem to know the sorts of things that are important in an academic setting (is my file posted on the wall somewhere in Weeks Hall?).

Just today, in fact, a professor dropped by my office as I was eating lunch and he seemed to recall all sorts of things I wouldn't have expected him to know. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I'm from Sault Ste. Marie; a favorite geological expedition destination (precisely why I wanted to create a research center there!). Maybe it's the fact that this department is so close-knit (like a little village or a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business). Maybe I have more (blog) readers than I realized. Whatever the case, I'm not used to getting so much attention. I usually just fade into the background... and silently slip below the radar...

Wasting Time

Yesterday I didn't get a single thing accomplished. Here's why...

I was just finishing up a 2-hour-long XRD analysis on the corundum sample I recently dialyzed when suddenly, the room plunged into sudden darkness and silence. Most likely, the campus-wide power outage was caused by an error at one of several nearby construction sites. "Maybe someone made a discovery at the (new) Discovery Institute (site)," someone said. So, I waited in the lab and stared at the screen like an idiot for the next few minutes while I attempted to come up with a plan to get everything done on schedule anyway; power outage or not.

Slowly, we all began to realize that this situation wasn't going to change anytime soon, removed my sample, picked up my belongings, and with a heavy heart, trudged back upstairs to my office. Other grad students were beginning to emerge from their labs and offices as well-- as if from a deep hibernation. Since the labs are generally located in the core of Weeks Hall, they lack windows and were simply too dark to work in. Windowless offices also fall into this category. The network and Internet were both out of commission as well so anyone doing computational research was also out of luck.

People gradually congregated in larger and larger clusters. Eventually, the "collective" came to a consensus about what should be done-- there was really only one thing we could do: go to the bar! It was just past 11:30 as we wandered down Orchard St. to Jordan's Big Ten Pub and yes, it would have been too early to start drinking (not that I could have anyway). We had a nice lunch and by the time we finished, the power was back on. Unfortunately, by then it was too late for me to squeeze in another XRD session before I had to leave for the pain clinic.

It's times like this that I really resent all the added responsibilities I have because of my chronic condition. Here I am trying to make the best possible impression and I keep getting interrupted... It wasn't just that appointment really; that was just the tip of the iceburg. What really got on my nerves were all the phone calls and messages I'd been getting from all of the clinics I have to visit all week long prior to that!

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I had my own wheels. Most of the clinics are off-campus and more than a single bus transfer away. Unless my departures and arrivals are timed perfectly (they never are), and I'm not kept waiting at several crucial junctures during my visit (and I always am), or asked to hang around to fill out forms (and I always do so they won't call me in the middle of an experiment later) I would still be gone from the lab for at least an hour. Adding all of these to a long bus ride means I might as well cancel the whole afternoon.

As it turned out, they not only wanted me to have some films taken (for tumor hunts even though I feel just fine), they thought I should see a few other specialists too (sure, why not just completely strangle my academic career before it even gets off the ground!) on top of the docs I already have. If my lab mates didn't know better, they'd probably swear I was a hypochondriac! Aren't there any sick people around here who truly deserve all this attention? I'm hoping that once the films come back clean, everyone will just relax and let me be!

House of Pain

Things are starting to go a more smoothly now. Apparently, a crucial step was missing from the protocol I was trying to work from before. Sometimes a simple dilution step can make all the difference! Obviously, this meant I had to re-do the experiment... You see, even though the rest of the experiment proceeded as intended, the aliquots which were produced by it were far too concentrated for the spectrophotometer to measure the samples. Fortunately, this was an easy fix; do it over with the dilution step. The isotherm I plotted with my data looked much better than the first; smaller error bars, most points fit the overall pattern, no negative concentrations... Now I have to wait for my PI's 2 cents before I either break into a happy-dance or have a nervous breakdown.

I still haven't heard anything from University Housing about getting reimbursed for the spoiled food I had to throw away a few days ago. Since it IS summer, it's possible that the manager I wrote to is away on vacation. A lot of people seem to be away at the moment. Weeks Hall is looking more like a ghost town these days. I haven't seen most of the people I met during interviews last March since I got here and most of the people I have seen since arriving in Madison, have only cropped up once. To be honest, it's getting a bit lonely around here! A large portion of the department happens to be at a conference in Switzerland at the moment too. Lucky ducks!

Tomorrow I go for my first appointment at my new pain clinic. It's just a general consult before they officially take over maintaining my implants (since the pump covers the pain so well, there won't be much else for them to do). I've been on the phone a lot this week with medical staff who have all sorts of questions about my history. I guess I can understand. I mean, most people who've been through what I have aren't working; they're on disability. I don't look sick and I don't know if there are any other young adults out there at all who have been through a nightmare like mine. In fact, one nurse said to me, "I'm surprised you don't have post-traumatic stress disorder!"

The typical lifestyle of a chronic pain patient who isn't receiving effective pain management

It truly is a miracle that I'm even here at all. Millions of people around the world are suffering from chronic pain but most never find adequate pain management-- even after years of actively seeking it out. I suffered in agony for 7 long years before finding my way to Brigham & Women's Hospital's Pain Management Center (and that was after wasting a year-and-a-half at another Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate, Massachusetts General Hospital where they have an initiative called, MGH Cares About Pain Relief“ which appeared to contradict what happened in their clinic).

TV character Dr. House from the TV show, "House"; popping pills as if they were candy (a trademark gesture repeated ad nauseam throughout every episode of the show). Most chronic pain patients find this character to be an offensive stereotype of a chronic pain patient.

Society isn't exactly making it easy for pain patients to recover either. With pop culture making a mockery of us through TV shows like “House“, the DEA criminalizing our dependence on (not addiction to) Schedule II narcotics (and all the hoop-jumping & red tape that goes with that), the financial fallout associated with any chronic illness in this nation, and ignorance by medical professionals and the general public alike (if no one teaches them, how will they ever learn?), patients find themselves having to treat pain management as a full-time occupation. So much manpower and talent wasted! It's truly one of the most understated tragedies of modern medicine.

Urge the FDA to Protect the Rights of People with Pain:
Sign the Petition!

The Fridge Fiasco

As much as I needed the whole weekend to recharge, I didn’t actually get it. I spent all of today trying to cram an entire weekend’s chores into just one because of a refrigerator malfunction in my apartment yesterday. As I mentioned previously, I’m living in UW’s grad student/post-doc/faculty housing and for the most part, I’ve been pretty happy here. It’s peaceful, the staff are courteous and professional and I enjoy the convenience of living directly on the campus bus route. Yesterday morning, I went to pour milk on my cereal and big, gooey chunks of putrescence poured out. As I emerged from my semi-conscious state (I’m generally still half-asleep when I start rummaging around the kitchen for breakfast) I realized that the jug I was holding wasn’t actually cold. I soon realized that nothing in my fridge was cold at all! I immediately called the resident manager on call (the equivalent of an “RA“) who came right over to my apartment and in turn, called maintenance.

It was decided that I would attempt to salvage what I could from my freezer and fridge and take it up the hill to the community center where there were industrial fridges and freezers with locks in which I could store my things until my own fridge had been fixed. We quickly sorted through everything and packed it up in a cart I used to use for laundry and groceries when I was living in Boston’s North End wheeled it up. Fortunately, the malfunction didn’t cause anything to thaw in the freezer but I was forced to discard over $20 in perishable items. Fortunately, I had not yet done my grocery shopping yet (I had intended to go later that day) for if I had, losses could easily have exceeded ten times that amount-- not exactly chump change these days!

Spoiled items in my fridge that had to be thrown out

Soon after my food was safely stored in the community center, the guy from maintenance showed up. He removed the paneling from inside the freezer and the source of the problem soon became apparent.; a thick layer of ice coated everything and clogged the vent which led to the refrigerator below. He instructed me to begin thawing the ice with a hair dryer while he left briefly to procure new parts and an industrial dryer to melt the ice. Once he returned, and the rest of the ice had been molten, he replaced a cap that had been warped by the ice and explained that the ice buildup was due to a known structural flaw in the refrigerators purchased by University Housing. Apparently, every few years, UW puts out a fresh contract to the company responsible for supplying appliances. Rather than replacing faulty appliances, it is simply more cost-effective to continue repairing them as they break and/or malfunction. For the record, the fridge in my kitchen is a “Roper”; a name I have never heard of.

As we sopped up all the water that had seeped onto the floor from the melting ice, he also explained that in a well-made refrigerator (i.e., GE models), certain parts would be made of steel, not Styrofoam and that an appliance could be expected to last 25 years. The models purchased for University Housing, however had a much shorter life expectancy, in the neighborhood of approximately five to six years.

Water, water everywhere! All this came from the ice we had to melt in the freezer.

While I completely understand that the university would want to get the biggest bang for it’s buck by purchasing appliances at discount prices, how deep a discount is too deep? It seems to me that if a product is deemed substandard that it should be grounds to terminate the contract with the manufacturer in question. What if this had happened in a full fridge? Like most other grad students, I live on a tight budget and unlike most other grad students, my budget is tightened even further by financial obligations associated with past medical expenses. $20 may not sound like a whole lot to most people, but it easily could have been $200 and I don’t know whether or not housing reimburses residents who accrue losses of this nature through no fault of their own.

Like I said before, people here seem to be pretty nice. I think I’d be surprised if I couldn’t get that money back. Maybe if enough refrigerators break down here this summer and enough people also seek reimbursement, the policies which led to purchasing these particular appliances will be reviewed. I know I had better things to do this weekend than baby-sit a bum fridge!

Sense and Salami Science

The last few days have been pretty rough. Perhaps the thing I hate the most about starting in a new lab is picking up other people's projects where they left off. I hate trying to decipher protocols that have been tweaked, or "refined" across hundreds of rounds of experiments and across multiple labs at various stages of evolution. I hate trying to find the original authors of those cryptic sets of instructions so that I can ask them about vague generalities or the equations they used in their calculations because mine don't seem to make any logical sense at all.


Above all else, I despise the software they leave behind to analyze their data! Their minds always work through problems differently than my own and since I generally haven't seen software package x before, of course I'm going to be asking people where the user manual is...

What do you mean "there is no manual?" How in the world are you supposed to learn how to use this program? Oh, I see... You haven't ever used it yourself so you really have no clue either. Do you know who I can ask? I know you're really busy and I'm sorry my intellectual repertoire doesn't include clairvoyance but my PI wanted this done immediately and...

If you haven't ever worked in a research lab before, you might think this sort of thing was a unique case-- It isn't. I've been through over a half dozen labs and it's always the same thing. It pretty much boils down to the fact that no research project ever starts from the very beginning. Everything we do heralds back to earlier projects and those projects were based on someone else's work before theirs, etc. Those old projects don't even have to be similar or even support each other. For instance, I've been instructed to review a lot of papers published by the my last lab but not for the purpose of mimicking what they did with a few slight improvements. Actually, the changes we are looking into are really quite dramatic and in some ways contradict previously-made assumptions.

Scientific research in general has become less about the quintessential "eureka" moments and earth-shattering discoveries and more about taking smaller, less risky steps and publishing as many papers as you can. In fact, there's a name for the kind of research that gets scattered across multiple publications when it really could have been covered by just one; “salami science“. There should also be a term to encompass superficial publications that just barely scrape across broad surfaces without going into any real depth. So, I’m tentatively proposing the term, “skimmed science”. If a better term already exists and I don’t know about it, please by all means, let me know.

My office came in really handy today. I could pace, swear, cry and mutter to myself all day long with the door shut so I didn't bother anyone else while I tried to make sense of everything. Wednesday, I told myself I just needed a good night's sleep so I could facilitate that breakthrough on Thursday. On Thursday, when the breakthrough didn't come, I told myself that I was just really fried because I'd had 2 bad days in a row. By the time this morning rolled around, I was completely ready to pitch my annoying little side-project out the window (along with my laptop).

I managed to turn in something at the end of the day but whether or not it makes any sense remains to be seen. I fully expect to have to re-do that particular experiment over again and I’m told it’s not uncommon when you’re just starting out. I just hope it doesn’t take me as long to sort out as it did my predecessor. Like all other first-year grad students around the world, I have big plans, lofty goals and great expectations. Seriously, who has time for this?

For more on “Salami Science”, read this article.

Adsorption

Last time I talked about making the transition between training and independence in the lab. Today, the shift occurred! My activities currently involve preparing my first batch of mineral oxide (specifically, corundum) and checking it by XRD to make sure it's clean and ready to use. While that's going (dialysis typically takes about 3 days before drying and XRD which tack on at least another day), I'm also performing an amino acid adsorption isotherm with L-aspartate and some corrundum that someone else already prepared. Adsorption isotherms tell us something about how amino acids, (in this case, the adsorbate) the building blocks of proteins, interact with mineral surfaces; something that's important to understand if we think the first protocells relied on mineral surfaces as structural supports (scaffolds) and catalytic surfaces (to facilitate chemical reactions that might not otherwise occur).

Amino acid adsorption isotherms generally take 2 days to run (because of the 12-hour adsorption step which we generally run overnight) and analyze. Although the procedure doesn't seem any more complicated than those I'm more familiar with in molecular biology, it's my first attempt at doing this particular reaction on my own and I have no idea how it will turn out. Any number of things can go wrong when you are doing an experiment on your own for the first time. Technical errors, computer/equipment malfunctions and simple lack of experience (esp. troubleshooting) are only the beginning.

As I'm writing this entry on the bus, on my way home from the lab, my L-aspartate is supposedly busy adsorbing to tiny grains of corrundum on my bench. First thing tomorrow, I'll have to remember to turn on the hot water bath. UW is currently on an energy-saving kick so that means the baths all get turned off in the lab at night and the darned things take FOREVER to reach 100oC! I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to wait around for it all day! At least I have everything else set out & ready to go so I won't be scrambling to find and/or label things.

Hmmm... The sky's a funny color. It looks like we're about to get dumped on! I just hope I make it into my building before it does!

Recent Activities

Okay, I'm really tired so I'm going to keep this short and sweet...

Over the past week, I've been going through various training sessions; everything from learning how to use XRD (X-ray diffraction) to identify solids to how to do an amino acid adsorption isotherm. Oxide preparation, operating the Zetasizer, phosphorous assays and many other protocols are spinning through my head as I try to nail them all down in preparation to break free and finally do some work on my own. With my background in molecular biology (mostly), I have a lot of catching up to do in the geochemical department. So far, I think I'm keeping up with everything but it's still tiring and I don't quite trust myself to remember everything after seeing it just once. So after each session, I'm left with a bulging folder of chicken-scratch-saturated sheets of looseleaf paper that must be typed and organized before it can be added to my growing collection of lab protocols. For those of you who don't know what a protocol is, it's like a recipe or a set of instructions that tells you how to conduct a given experiment or procedure in the lab.

The sudden upsweep of activity means that I've progressed from the first stage in which all I did was read papers all day, to the second, where I not only spend every spare moment I have reading papers, but learning new procedures as well. Shortly, this second stage will give way to a third; independence in the lab (at least, where my bench work is concerned). No, this doesn't mean I get to go crazy and spend all my PI's hard-earned grant money-- she still gets the final say about what I will do when-- it just means that I will become responsible for balancing literature review with prep time and experiments such that a reasonable amount of progress is made each week. Progress is guaged at informal lab meetings which, I'm going to discuss in greater detail once I have a little more time to do justice to this particular topic.

For now, I think that's about all I can handle. I have a lot to get done tomorrow and if I don't get to bed soon, I may find myself falling asleep on my desk after lunch (not how I want my PI to find me if she comes looking for me!).

Consider Consideration

Now that the whole social security/background check issue seems to be cleared up, I can go back to all my usual activities; namely, trying to work medical appointments in around my technical training in the lab. Although my intrathecal pump isn't scheduled to run dry for another month or so, I have half a dozen hoops to jump through to be sure I get it refilled before my belly (the alarm in the pump) starts beeping! I mean, how embarrassing would it be to be sitting in the middle of someone's thesis defense and have to explain what that sound is to everyone in the room? At least a cell phone can be answered or shut off if it rings-- the same isn't true for the pump. The only way to shut it up is to fill it.

So anyway, I called Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston, where I had it implanted and did I ever get a rude reminder of why moved out here in the first place! Now, don't get me wrong... I received excellent medical care at the BWH Pain Management Center. My pain specialist in particular, was exemplary and so were all the nurses and support staff in the pain clinic. The records department on the other hand, left much to be desired! Either the woman I spoke with was dealing with a personal crisis of some sort which prompted her to bite my head off at every turn or she was just another person coping poorly with the stressful lifestyle thrust upon most Bostonians in general.

Each day I'm here in Madison, I marvel at the apparent absence of aggression in most of the people I interact with. Maybe it's the fact that we wake up each morning to the sound of birds singing instead of blaring car horns, sirens and construction. Maybe it's the conservation of green space; keeping the concrete jungle of urban sprawl at bay. Maybe it's the contagiousness midwestern courtesy-- uh, scratch that.

Crowded Route 80 Madison Metro bus

As I'm writing this entry from one of the UW buses that circuits the campus, there some loudmouth yapping away on his cellphone, despite the dirty looks he's getting from the rest of us! I guess no matter where you go, there will always be somebody who thinks they're "special" and that the rules don't apply to them. *shoots dirty look over shoulder* Can't this guy take a hint? He's as dense as a neutron star!

Seriously! Who cares?

Okay... Looks like I'll have to try to ignore him. I'm almost home anyway.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Over the past few days, I've had my hands full with a major bureaucratic crisis, of sorts. It all started with a letter in the mail from UW which stated that the social security number I submitted during the consent phase of a criminal background check (required for all new university employees), belonged to someone else who lived in Michigan from 1934-1951. Superficially, it seemed utterly ridiculous, and even a bit funny (clearly, I am NOT that old!), but this letter heralded the arrival of some serious consequences!

Since no one could be technically hired by the University of Wisconsin without first passing a criminal background check, if I didn't find a way to fix this problem, I wasn't going to be paid or get health insurance coverage! Needless to say, panic quickly set in and I immediately called my PI to tell her what was happening (thankfully, when she says she has an "open-door policy", she really means it!). She gave me the name of someone else in the department who oversees new appointments and told me to call her. Although I wasn't expecting to get a response to my voicemail message until the following day, Michelle Szabo got right back to me. She reassured me that this was probably just a minor typographical error and would be quickly rectified once I went in to South Hall the following day to straighten it out.


The next morning, I brought in heaps of papers to support my claims (that I was who I said I was and that the SSN I use really is mine... And has been since 1996!). I had to beg to get the check re-run by Hire Right, the company UW contracts to conduct them. The same methods led to the same result so, one thing led to another and ultimately, I was forced to go to the social security office here in Madison for proof that my social security number really was mine and hadn't ever been issued to anyone else.

Not only did I receive a certificate to verify what I had been saying all along but the lady I spoke with at the Social Security Administration actually picked up the phone and called the criminal background check coordinator whose number was on the letter I received. She asked the coordinator how the checks were being conducted because the only way they could have gotten such a ridiculous result would have been to use only a portion of my SSN and assume that I was born in the same state that issued my social security card, Michigan (which, I was not, since I was actually born in Canada!). Want to know what the real kicker is? If I had come to Madison as a Canadian (or any other foreign national), I would not have had to go through a criminal background check at all! How outrageous is that?

So anyway, I brought the certificate I received from Social Security back to the criminal background check coordinator and spent a very nerve-wracking weekend without medical insurance (a very dangerous thing for someone like me). Over the weekend, my PI kept a close eye on my situation and made recommendations which, I believe, finally got things moving along. The following morning, I camped out at South Hall until a call was finally placed to Hire Right (that continued to insist that they were using my full social security number in their search and not only that, but that the data came from the Social Security Administration itself!). Clearly, we weren't getting anywhere.

For the time being, it was decided that the results of the background check would be ignored and my appointment would simply proceed as planned. It only made sense... I mean even if I was an ex-con (and I'm not-- but you'll have to take my word for it *LOL!*), what harm could I possibly cause in a geology department? We don't work with hazardous biological agents (for the most part), children (except during supervised outreach activities), or other people's money. Seriously, if I was a criminal, I'd think my department was a pretty lame place to hang out.

So there you have it. Criminals beware! The University of Wisconsin is keeping a lookout for you! Even innocent people aren't immune. Those who passed their checks, interestingly enough, seemed to be the most vocal in stating their objections to them. Quite frankly, they felt it was an invasion of their privacy. Although I personally have nothing to hide, I have to agree.

I only hope UW comes to realize that the money currently spent on these silly background checks would be better off going towards other things... like academic scholarships. Surely, cutting down on the debt loads of UW graduates would be a smarter investment! Just think of all those grateful future-alumni with their big fat paychecks (because they don't have student loans to repay!). It seems like a no-brainer to me.