Coming up for air

Sorry for the lack of anything resembling a post here, I am neck deep in classes and trying to write/finish a first author research paper. Oh and keep the apartment clean (dishes are a war of attrition, I am currently winning this round).

Yes, I may be insane.

More to come.

Great Moments In Lab

More like great mishaps in lab.

So lets start with last week, where our microscope decided to kill its bulb. Not the end of the world, we have extra bulbs, right? Yes, with a caveat of course. The bulb is in my PI's office, who is on vacation for another week. Greeeeat. Oh and did I mention I have no idea where the bulb even is in this microscope? And that we need it to look at our plates daily? And that the next nearest one is at least one building over?

Thankfully, after much fighting (gentle mind you) with the scope, I found the lightbulb and got the housing around it off. I then was desperate enough to try the bag of 'used' bulbs. 90% were in fact used, however there was one that worked! I cannot tell you how happy this made me.

Next moment of pure brilliance (please read much sarcasm into this statement). I tried to make 1g/mL of BSA in PBS. Instead I made snot. I seriously cannot describe the consistency any other way. And not runny snot, but the seriously thick goopy stuff. Okay, so lets bump the starting concentration down to 100mg/mL of BSA. Much better. Now we dissolve in PBS and really well in RIPA buffer. But the special extraction buffer? Yeah, I somehow dissolved my BSA partially in this water based buffer, walked away with it on the shaker to finish dissolving while having lunch, and came back to a gelatinous solid. And I do mean solid. Even my PI was like, well thats weird, what was in this buffer again? We think we somehow accidentally cooked the BSA with some chemical reaction in the buffer (we are thinking it may have been the beta mercaptoethanol). Needless to say, we just scrapped using that buffer in our Bradford assay as a standard.

And then to finish off the day, I am going through my old notes to figure out what experiments I still have in limbo and I realize, I used the wrong control reagent on a whole experiment. Face, say hi to palm. Thankfully I hadn't done the qRT-PCR (I the big expensive reaction part) on it yet, but it does mean I have to do it all over again. My PI did point out that I now have a nice bank of RNA for controls when I need it. Still does not make me super happy. Oiy.

Thankfully, this is an atypically high mishap week.

Of Lab and Cookies

P.I. : "You made these with butter?!"

EMT GFP: "Of course! What else would you use?"

Seriously, if you are going to make cookies, why would you NOT use butter.

Productivity

It feels so good.

Damnit, this means I have to get my act together more. :)

Sad, but so true

We cannot write in English, we must write in Science

I made baby heart cells!

And not baby as in I'm pregnant by any means, I made heart cells in a dish! Mouse heart cells! And they beat! I am calling them "baby" after the discussion with my PI over how these cardiomyocytes (ie baby heart cells) are not mature while the ones we have beating in our bodies are matures (and use a different system to beat than my baby heart cells).

Needless to say, cool way to end a week!

In other random news, due to my ambiguous status at local university, I have taken to introducing myself as "PI's student" for lack of any other way to describe myself seeing as I am a) not a med student there or b) a PhD student and thus lack a true status.

Anyways, more on life soon, I promise an EMS post!

Trying not to be nervous

With an upcoming interview I have been trying to calm my nerves with reading and as such as finally finished this book:

Can't say it helped with the nerves but it did strike my brain thinking again.

I remember being in high school, when we were still working out way through the Human Genome Project and my biology teaching was explaining what we knew about cancer then. I don't even remember what she was talking about but I am assuming it was oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes because I remember a question I asked. The Q & A went something like this:

Young EMT GFP: So if we know what genes go wrong in cancer, why can't we fix them or take them out and replace them with new ones?

Biology Teacher: I don't know, but I bet you will find that out someday.

I look back on that question now and realize what a profound question about cancer I managed to ask. I have no idea how I even put the pieces together but they are still questions we struggle with today in terms of cancer research. Granted, the questions are inevitably far more complex that what I asked in high school but while there will be no "magic bullet" cute for cancer, perhaps we can piece together smaller simpler answers that will help chip away at the beast.

There was a line in the last few chapters that described one scientist's way of looking a cancer as a function of his initial training. It rang true for me because my first job post undergrad was working in a research lab. It was an amazing experience but looking back, what I realize it did for me was take me from a budding molecular biologist who know scattered bits about a cells and gave me a system to think about.

My system became immunology and even now, years later working in a developmental lab, I can't help look at my work through the lens of the immune system. It has given me a lens to look a problems, work through them, learn from them. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it hinders, but I am learning to make it mine. Perhaps my next lens will be developmental or even stem cells. I will have to see where research takes me.

Though that of in itself is something I have been thinking about lately. I want nothing more than to get into med school. All of biological science makes more sense to me when observed through the lens of organ systems and body. Its all connected and seeing that picture makes me want to learn its details more. If there is anything my master's program taught me, this was it. But now its coming in direct contact with what I know I can do well, research.

I know many people can happily marry research and medicine, but until now I have always thought about it esoterically, as some far off future that I don't have to think about yet. A thought so far from the truth. What research I do now will build what I do in the future. I can use my research now as a spring board to future research, future jobs.

My P.I. has started to lay out paper ideas, paper ideas that can advanced basic science knowledge while working towards curing diseases. My mind has been running non-stop as to how to get these experiments going, I want them to be perfect, so that they have a real chance at working. Not because I want the papers, but because I hope someday it pans out and that a cure or at least a lasting treatment can be found. I want to see the faces of patients light up when they hear they are treated. No more drugs, no more tests, no more fearing for their life.

This, this is why I want to be a doctor, to fix people so that they may have a better life.

But I still haven't found what I am looking for...

Love U2, love that song, and it so aptly applies to my day! I naively assumed that since the antibody list said my antibody of interest was in the red box in the -20 that I would find it there. Sooooooooo has not happened yet. I froze my fingers going through enough red boxes for an army and still can't find the darn antibody! So much for proper antibody organization. I may have to let some OCD go and get the best of me and reorganize all the antibody boxes.

In other news, my new set of students for this semester are making me really excited about teaching! I have doubled my class size (16!) which for me is huge and they all seem really engaged. I was particularly proud of two moments in the first two days that I have been teaching them this semester. First, I already have several students asking if I will teach the second half of this class (which I taught last semester) over the summer! Always a good way to start! Second, I was on a clinical tangent over how it can be really bad not to have pain receptors in your skin (CIPA, as found here) but could not remember the name of the disease at all. Suddenly, one of the students in the back of the room who had been looking incredibly bored perks up her head and raises her hand, asking if the disease started with a 'C'. I answered honestly with the fact that I could not remember but by the end of our break that day she came up to me with a huge grin saying that she looked it up and it did start with a 'C' and was called CIPA.

Moments like the second, where I take a student who seemed bored and not interested and manage to pull them into being interest, particularly by a clinical correlate of all things, make me enjoying teaching more than I ever thought I could!

In medical school applications news, I have been rejected by two school, invited for an interview by one (the at the top of my list at that!), and spammed the rest with update letter. I got this email back and it made me smile.

"Dear EMT GFP,

Thank you for your email and your update.  The format is perfect!  We will place an electronic copy  of your attachment with your file.

We appreciate your continued interest in the School of Medicine.

Regards,

SOM"

I love it when I can make someone's day by correct formatting! It may also speak to the number of times I have gone through this darn application process!

Sadly, the EMS front has been fairly quiet.

When your PI...

Tells you to do something, its probably for a good reason.

Like the fact that antibodies really do need to be at the correct pH. So when he says you need to check the pH BEFORE you start the blotting, its not just to make you do another step, its so that you both don't have the headache of checking it later.

Lesson learned. There is a reason (9 times out of 10) why you PI wants you to do something a very specific way.

Finals: Its busy on the professors too!

Needless to say, its been a busy post Thanksgiving.

Several nights at the firehouse were we ran call all night (and then I went a taught the next morning. Thank you firehouse pitch black coffee!)

On top of that, I have had several experiments in lab that have lead to late nights frantically analyzing results, making figures, and proofing papers before deadlines.

Lets not even go into my frustrations with my bacteria at the moment. Needless to say, E. coli should not be this hard to grow. Its E. coli for crying out loud! It should be hard to kill these buggers! At least now they are growing on plates, now to just get them going in culture.

And last but not least, my poor students. I love them dearly but I sometimes pity them when this is just half of the review that I gave:

Bonus points for anyone who can tell me what the second pictures is explaining!

Molecular Biology

One of the few sciences where flicking is an acceptable form of mixing, alcohol is the be all end all of cleaning materials, and Carnation instant non-fat dry milk is the preferred protein solution to blot a Western Blot protein assay (though BSA is swiftly becoming even better).

As frustrating as it can be to be working on cells/proteins/DNA that I can't even see, the things one can discover from a single experiment can be immensely rewarding. This can be where the basic cause of a disease can be found or where a seminal discover on how a cell works comes to light.

And then the next day you can be cursing an experiment because you have no idea what just went wrong, just that it didn't work! Or you bacterial plates that had antibiotics on them decided to grow mold :) Too bad we didn't add anti-fungals to the plates!

Standards and PIs

"There are professional standards and then there are personal standards, both of which are good but one of which that typically gets the better of me. My personal standards for dealing with work and volunteering are quiet high, so when I mess something up I usually take it out on myself. It could be a little nothing or it could be huge, both end up getting the better of me. I want to save everyone, make it to every meeting, do everything right even though I know that in reality, there will be times when I slip up or the patient was simply beyond me. Yet it is the little things, like missing a meeting that I had no excuse to miss simply because I got caught up with what I was doing that particularly annoy me. I should be better than this, I should be able to do everything. I know I am human and I always do my best, but sometimes I feel like nothing wants to work out in my favor."

I wrote that a month a half ago. I was incredibly frustrated with myself over a very little something. I can smile at it now because I have since A) had an even worse day than that one that ended in a mental breakdown and a great roommate and B) have come to terms with my perfectionism (at least for now).

Now, the first thing to realize is that I am a perfectionist in only certain parts of my life, cleaning is not one of them. My poor room is constantly a disaster (of clean clothes) and the apartment bathroom sorely needs cleaning (bless my roommate for putting up with me). Oddly, the kitchen is almost always clean. Anyways, the point is that in lab and on the ambulance, I am a perfectionist. If I can't get something to work right, I get very upset at myself.

This is in part why I want to be a doctor because I feel there is so little I can do as an EMT. I know I am capable of more if people just let me! I have some what come to terms with my limited practitioner skills at this point, though I am finding that I need to crack my own whip again soon and beef up on those provider skills.

But lab, oh lab still gets me when it comes to perfectionism. I know I have the skills and the brains to do well so it drives me nuts when I can't get something to work! I feel like its all my fault when in truth, it is the nature of science and research. Rarely do things go correctly the first time. I get so frustrated that I forget I have the brain and the ability to troubleshoot.

This is where my current PI is a blessing. He has yet to get mad at me for something I couldn't do in lab. He has taken the attitude of helping me troubleshoot my way through an experiment, from literature research through design, execution, and data analysis. Of course, he had to tell me that this was his plan otherwise I would have been incredibly frustrated at myself for not being able to do anything. Once I got that through my head, late nights with nothing working stings less. It stings no doubt, but it is bearable.

So the point of all this rambling is that perfectionism and the frustration that goes with it is a double-edged sword. It can, if I am not careful, make me destroy myself, but, when managed, it can make the most beautiful results.

Gloves: Its Always Your Size They Are Missing

In my case, it is always the small gloves. And its both the ambulance and the lab.

At one point I was even taking pairs from the hospitals we transported to because we never had any of the good gloves at our station. We had small latex gloves, but they were first off latex and second off so old that as soon as you touched anything with them on they tore, shredded, ripped or otherwise tried to disintegrate on you while you were wearing them. Completely useless darn things.

Thankfully after a few months and some polite asking, new small gloves were ordered and I haven't had much problems at the station since. I did recently run into the lack of gloves problem in my newest lab (they only had large and extra large! Massive problem!) but thanks to some polite asking, I was able to "requisition" some gloves for use.

But what about the gloves themselves? Perhaps I am pickier than most, but I actually do care what kind of gloves I am wearing for what "job". Granted, I care more that I have gloves or not and that they are smalls more than anything else. But if I have a choice, I will exercise it.

Ambulance: Oh the high cuffed glove! How I adore thee! Sometimes you are fairly thick and you do make finding a pulse difficult but you do such a great job at protecting my arms from gunk, particularly in the summer! Touch wise I like the Cerulean blue gloves that seem to have taken up home at my station. They fit reasonably well (as in not super baggy) and they give me great textural input without being too think and breaking.

Lab: This gets broken down into about three categories depending on what I am doing.

For mouse work, give me tight fitting gloves that are fairly thin. I need the grip they provide to hold on to those little buggers when they squirm! Not to mention, tail vain injections with a 27 gauge needle work oh so much better when I have fine dexterity control that the thin gloves provide. Now due to the short cuff, this means I also typically punch holes in the paper gown I have to wear and stick my thumbs through so that the gown stays down on my arms and my gloves stay affixed over the gown. No mouse or mouse parts are making it up my gloves!

For gross organ processing I like those nice thick purple gloves! Great for keeping everything I am doing off my hands, maintain most of my dexterity, and can last for hours on end, a requirement when an experiment takes all day! Sometimes these feel too thick though and can tire out my hands if I need to do fine dexterity work.

For molecular biology work, give me my latest find in gloves! Super thin but incredible textural feedback! Somehow also super durable! I have only ripped maybe two gloves and it was under severe duress! Granted, I will wear the extra small in these gloves because the smalls are a bit to baggy, but it means that I never get my gloves stuck in microcetrofuge tubes or drop anything due to excess glovage! I think these would also make great gloves for the ambulance but I haven't been able to test that yet. Another point for these gloves is that they don't make my hands sweat nearly as much as other, a major bonus when I am in and out of gloves all day!

Anatomy Dissection: Now this is where I am torn. I like a thinner glove because I am not only double gloving but I need some serious dexterity control here. However, I like to stay covered as possible and having my hands not smell like cadaver at the end of the day is great. Sometimes it depends on the dissection, where I will risk thinner gloves for greater dexterity. Either way, these buggers had better be tight fitting! No getting stuck in dissection scissors for me!

Overall, I like a tight fitting glove that has good textural feedback and dexterity. I dislike extra glove floating around my finger tips. But at the end of the day, I they have to hold up and not break so that I can actually get work done!

What are your likes and dislikes about gloves? Ever had a great moment where you didn't have the gloves you wanted?

Accomplishments of the Day

Work for grant figure - completed (until we decided what to add for the supplemental)
Downloads box - emptied
Printer connection - established
To do list for lab research - growing to epic proportions
Apparatus - cleaned and detailed
Patients saved - pending...
Lecture presentation - waiting to be worked on

Yes, I live in two/three very different worlds: researcher/student , EMT, and professor :)

I love them all

Because normal is not a word that has ever applied to me

Simply put, my life is rather interesting right now.

The calls have been fairly quiet or minor. Lots of little old ladies and men needing help off the floor. I don't mind the calls as the "patients" are always so appreciative. The interesting call will get it's own post later.

Since I needed employment again, I managed to fin myself two teaching jobs at the local college. Never expected I would ever teach in any capacity other than informal instructions to my newer crew members to have them functional on the ambulance and passing their EMS courses. And yet here I am with two classes. One of my students unfortunately had to drop because she needed to take a class for her major but the email she sent me gave me a boost of confidence. I am working on perfecting my lectures but she said she couldn't wait to take the class again from me next semester as I was the first instructor on that subject to make her excited about class and want to more. That alone I feel is an accomplishment! it gives me hope that my teaching is not as bad as I may think it is.

Due to bills needing to be paid, I also have a lab job again. I am finding the topic more integrator than I expected though I have already experienced a few bumps on the way. I typically with technology and prediction programs however the ones I tried using utterly failed on me. Since my project has an extremely short deadline I had to suck up my pride in not knowing how to use a molecular biology program and ask for help for help from my PI. I felt as if I was letting him down but the networking with other labs near by quickly sorted out my technological problem and has left me with a great new contact. Turned out I was using an older program that had a particularly odd interface. I have since been shown a far superior search site. :)

In talks with my PI today he Asked if I was applying to MD/PhD programs and frankly I almost didn't know what to say. No one has ever really suggested that I go for one before. I have considered the idea before but all the MD/PhDs that I know are brilliant and I only see myself in the smart category. My GPA from undergrad is a hurdle enough as it is getting into med school so needless to say, its nice to see someone judging me for who I am now and not who I was in college. I am not a number, I am a person!

Now, let's see where this side trail in my life leads!

Down Time

I am a volunteer EMT, giving me the reverse of many. To me, the ambulance is where I go when I need a break from lab and school. Running call is a nice practical break from all my theory. Seeing patients reminds me that not everyone will be as hard to deal with as a squirming mouse.

Yes that is right, a mouse.

I am a research scientist whose focus ranges from pediatric graft versus host disease to immunotherapy for solid tumors. Simplified, I work to cure cancer.

In fact, I have miracle mice.

I cured cancer.

A highly aggressive, clinically relevant, pediatric solid tumor.

Okay, it was only in mice, but it was with limited distress to the mice who had very large, typically incurable by chemo sized tumors. I swore this new drug wasn't going to work, swore that the tumors were too big, swore that I should just give the mice a break and sacrifice them before the experiment was up.

But science and mother nature (and my boss) proved me wrong. While I didn't cure all the mice, I made a very nice dent in what would have otherwise been a death sentence. Over half of my experimental group are alive and currently tumor free. No surgery. No chemo drugs. No hair loss. No damage to the immune system.

In fact, it was their own immune system, with a little help, that cured these mice. All I gave was a drug that makes the immune system a better immune system, breaking the tolerance that many tumors create in a host to protect themselves from the immune system. Breaking that tolerance is hard as the body doesn't like kill off 'self' cells. But it work and better yet, it may even be repeatable.

So yes, I am a science geek and love research almost as much as love my clinical interactions with patients on the unit. I believe that a strong foundation in science, in understand research as the basis for why medicine works and advances is key to being a good clinician. Sure, I am not research emergency medicine and maybe I won't always be research when I reach my goal, but I know that it will help me understand. And hey, in the mean time, I may have just put this drug in the 'to be developed for clinical trials' box. Who ever said research can't save lives :)

Exhausted

Exhausted.

Three calls back to back. It’s only the start of our shift. And there was a pediatric patient. They always drain me emotionally, even if they are okay the entire time in my care.

Exhausted.

0500 cardiac arrest call. I end up bagging the patient till the medic unit arrives on scene. The sun rises as we leave the scene.

Exhausted.

Filling out application after application to master’s programs. I need to go back to school. I realize this. But I hate writing personal statements. And in some ways it is still admitting defeat and having to deal with realities of screwing up in college. At least I am waitlisted, at least there might be a sense of hope.

Exhausted.

There is an ever growing pile of laundry to do. Dirty to wash so I have pants. Clean to fold so I have somewhere to sleep. We are not even going to into how much I need to clean my desk off.

Exhausted.

Treating mice every single day with oral drugs. For two weeks straight. Three weeks straight. Four weeks straight. On weekends too. Measuring tumors. Trying to finish experiments up. Trying to get everything done and leaving every day thinking I should have done more.

Exhausted.

My brain just wants to shut off and zone out to a book or TV. The sofa is at least a horizontal surface. I wake at 0300, all the lights still on, still dressed in what I wore to work, and all I can do is turn off the lights before curling back up on the sofa and sleeping.

Exhausted.

Medical school applications need to be started. Again. Maybe I will have a glimmer of hope this year. Maybe I will finally at least get an interview.

Exhausted.

House fire. No one is hurt. We check vitals signs and make sure no one is over heating. And we pack hose. Lots of hose. Its actually rather fun. But I am also the smallest person on scene and am seriously lacking upper body strength. I’ll but sore but I will have had a good time.

Exhausted.

Four calls, two back to back and the rest close enough together that sleep is questionable. They are all good calls. They all teach me something. The medic that hops on twice teaches me too. But I have to go to work in the morning and the last call gets me back into the station just at shift change.

Exhausted.

For the greater good

Now that I have had a thorough streak of EMS, a little lab divergence is needed, though apologies are needed for the general lack of posting. I am neck deep in work, applications, and the firehouse.

Disclaimer: If you do not want to hear about the nitty gritty of laboratory research with lab animals (aka mice) do not read any further. I have heard and understand both sides of the lab animal argument and this is not a post about that.

When I started my job, my project was heavily focused on bone marrow transplants and finding new pathways/potential treatment options for graft versus host disease, a possible side effect of a non-self bone marrow transplant (if you want to know more about these in general, leave a comment and I will write a post).

Now, my project is focused on non-standard chemotherapy drug screening for cancers. The theory behind it is awesome, as these drugs don’t destroy rapidly growing cells, but instead make the immune system better at fighting off cancer. Now I am talking about small amounts of cancer in the setting of someone who has had a tumor/cancer removed but may be a high risk for relapse. These drugs would help with the relapse (perhaps more, but that will be another post :) ).

In order to have the most clinically relevant results possible at this stage, we decided to give these drugs orally instead of injecting them, as most patients would take the final form of this in pill form, not necessarily an IV drip. So I inject my mice with tumor, wait a few days and then start treating them with my drugs to see if any will ultimately kill the cancer. Easy you think.

Think again.

Giving a mouse a specific amount of a drug orally is no easy task. It involves much dissolving, aliquoting, and mixing of said to start with. Then there is the actual problem of giving the mouse the drug, seeing as just having them drink the small volume will never fly in the scientific world. This leads to EMT GFP taking very small metal feeding needles (they are blunt tipped, not sharp at all) attached to a 1cc syringe and accurately dosing each and every mouse.

After scuffing the mouse so it will theoretically not move.

And navigating a mouse’s pharynx blind to avoid a trachea (hey! its the reverse of intubation! Well kind of) and not puncture the esophagus.

It stresses me out, because try as I might, there is always one mouse that manages to squirm and pull, causing me to tighten my grip and occasionally accidently start to strangle to mouse. The second I see this I always put the mouse down but it still stresses me out that I did it. I think the mice are cute and I don’t want to be hurting them. But they are the ones who are squirming, though I know telling them to hold still does absolutely no good.

And then they pee on me, which, while I am wearing gloves and a gown (and booties and a mask and a hair cover), I still dislike.

Or the ones that try to struggle and struggle despite my good grip on them and freak out like they can’t breath even though I know they have an airway (if you are squeaking, you have an airway).

And then each and every tumor has to be measured. At least twice a week. More when the tumors get big. Not as bad as giving them drugs, but tedious. Oh so tedious and not entertaining as the mice try to struggle. Again.

Bone marrow transplants are so much less stressful…

But, if I can get through these compounds, if I can surviving being a human high through put machine, I may find something that helps. I may find a new drug to fight cancer. And at the very least, I can cure mice of cancer. In the end, it will be worth it.

Lab Zen

There are two basic kinds of lab work, wait, no, make that four, and some are more desirable more than others.

There is the tedious work, such as analyzing samples. If I am running flow cytometry, all I do is take my prepared samples, hook them up to the machine, and hit start. I get maybe two to five minutes of run time before enough is collected and then I repeat with the next tube. I can’t do anything but stare at a computer screen and wait. Even the down time between samples is not enough to do anything significant. It get, well, boring.

There is the work that takes just enough brain power that I have to pay attention to what I am doing but the work itself is repetitive and stressful. When I have to hold a mouse with one hand in a scruff while treating or measuring a tumor. The mouse squirms and I really have to focus on not letting that mouse move to get everything just right. Or I am pipetting samples into a 96-well plate where each well has something different in it and I cannot cross contaminate anything or I will lose the whole experiment. This work is taxing and stressful; it doesn’t tease the curious brain cells, but does require focus whether or not it is interesting.

Then there is the work that requires massive amounts of brain power. I have to set up an experiment, calculate cells and titrate dyes while making sure nothing gets cross contaminated. Or I am trying to understand results that are just not making sense and all the possible why’s are running through my brain.

Finally, there is the work that is repetitive but not stressful. I get into a rhythm as just enough of my brain stays around to make sure I do not cross contaminate anything but otherwise it gets to wonder. There is usually a phase of random thoughts, which leads into a battle with my inner demons, which can be fairly stressful and self-destructive, but once that passes my brain finally relaxes and is blissfully peaceful. No stray thoughts, no what ifs, no doubt, just simple peace.

That is my favorite kind of work, the work that leads to lab zen.

Hospital Blues and Delights

Let me preface this post by saying this, all that snowfall that has been being dumped on the East Coast since December? Yeah, I have gotten ALL of it. Perhaps not always the worst, but I believe I have officially seen more snowfall accumulation this winter than I did in four years living in central NY state. Its been interesting to say the least, but more on that later.

The lab that I work in shares the building with a specialty hospital, allowing the doctors I work under to be both MD and research scientist. Its a wonderful set up with great people and the chance to really see the “bench to bedside” effect in clinical research. Normally there are very few downsides.

It was late, as in well past 2000 with few researchers left in the building. I was done with work but had stayed at my desk to finish up a school assignment (yes, I was working a full time job and taking nigh classes at a local college).

Poof! I am consumed by darkness, only the eerie red light of exit signs illuminating my lab followed a chorus of emergency alert beeps from our refrigerators, -20 C, and -80 C freezers complaining that they had no power. And a dead computer with a very lost document.

Needless to say that ended my evening at work, and the snow hadn’t even started!

I had known that the building was going to be testing their generators that evening, its required for buildings that hospitals are in, I just hadn’t thought it would have been that early in the evening. It was also supposed to have been Saturday, but with an impending December snow storm, they decided testing before the snow was a better idea.

Now while my Friday night had a bit of a damper after having to be up till 0000 finishing said assignment, the weekend held a bit of a surprise, and I am not talking about the feet of snow we got.

I had to come in both days of the weekend to treat mice. If I didn’t I would lose two weeks worth of an experiments and that was not on my list of things to do. Well, much to my delight, the roads and parking lots around my building were beautifully plowed and very much drivable, unlike the rest of the county. I was impressed. The hospital is a specialty hospital, no emergency room, but they had planned ahead, knowing that people would still need treatment and made sure access to care was not a problem. Or in my case, access to my mice.