Tag Archives: science

W is for the Writing Center… and finding my special purpose. (Wink.)

Awesome Things, Recurring Themes, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I started working in the Michigan Tech Writing Center when I was a sophomore in college. I loved it there SO much– more than being an RA, more than rowing crew, more even than my actual major. I only worked 8 – 12 hours per week, depending on the semester, but those 8 – 12 hours were much more formative for me than any 15 – 20 credit course load I ever had.

The chem sci building-- where I basically lived for four years.
The chem sci building– where I basically lived for four years.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that I learned chemistry and physics and math (except differential equations– what a waste! I couldn’t even get a date out of that class, though I tried…) and such. It’s probably even good that I learned some things about myself by being an RA (which super sucked, but led to meeting my husband, so…) and rowing crew (which made my back, arms, and legs crazy strong for the year I did it, but just ended up being too much– let’s be honest here, I’m no athlete). Those are the things that made me look different from the outside, paid for my room and board, and filled in the bubbles on the GRE, but I’ve got to tell you, they are not the biggest things. The most influential things.

The most influential thing was absolutely, hands down, 100% for definitely sure the Writing Center.

The Writing Center. At an engineering university? That caters almost entirely to the most technically-minded of the nerds? In the middle of no where? I mean… the edge of no where?

Yes. The Writing Center. At Michigan Tech. Which is all those things, but such a hidden gem. (I should really recruit for the Huskies, I love that place so much.)

{Source}
{Source}

I’ve talked a little bit before about my boss in the Writing Center, Sylvia Matthews, and how absolutely amazing she was (is, to be sure). And I really think that it was she, Jill Arola, and Nancy Grimm and their ridiculously insightful ways of thinking, living, and educating that made it the special place that it was.

You see, in the Writing Center, it wasn’t so much about the grammar and the punctuation and the sentence structure and all the other technical aspects of writing that tend to give the vast majority of people either a headache or a panic attack. It was about understanding and being understood. About using words to do that. And the things I learned. Oy.

As part of working at the Writing Center, all of the coaches had to take a small, one credit course in which we discussed pedagogy and techniques and experiences and the like. At the end of every semester of “work,” we all wrote reflections about our experiences and what we had learned. I saved a couple of them. Not sure how exactly… they’ve definitely survived several major paper purges since I graduated in 2005, but listen to this one:

I can’t help but feel like this shows the the Writing Center is the place where I am supposed to be and the work I’m doing is important.

That was in 2004!

Pablo Picasso once said, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

Words, communicating with them… I think that’s my gift.

It’s not what I expected my gift to be. Nor is it what I thought it was or what I necessarily would have hoped for, but here we are. I think I finally found it.

It’s not like I just woke up one day in the recent past and liked writing or thought I was good at it.

No.

My “gift” found me a long, long time ago. The Young Authors thing-a-ma-jig at Lincoln (who remembers that big book? how good it felt to have your story “published”?) was always awesome for me in elementary school. I loved the Independent Study in English I did with my cross country coach, Mr. Moran, my sophomore year in high school… and even now I’m still proud of the essay I vaguely remember writing about Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles… no idea what it was about, but guys, it was good.

Later on, in college, I got this rave review on a biochemistry report:

An absolute pleasure to read, etc... yay yay yay! A+!
An absolute pleasure to read, etc… yay yay yay! A+!

Yep, kept that too. It made me feel awesome!

And I loved the writing center so so so much.

Yet, my brain, my logic, my ACT results and aptitude tests and interests had me convinced that it was science science science all the way. Science would lead me to success. I would cure something, help someone, do sciencey things and make the world a better place by being noticed, by making a big impact.

A little piece of me must have known that wasn’t true. Because if it were, I’d be a chemist somewhere… working at 3M, inventing polymers and interpreting spectra and such, because I could have done that after college. But it didn’t seem right. Something wasn’t fitting and I wasn’t happy. So I went to grad school… where I wasn’t happy… and tried to go to med school… but I realized that was a very expensive path to continued unhappiness… so I stuck it in grad school… and came to the end… and still wasn’t very happy with my options.

It took all that time for me to admit to myself that I didn’t want to be a bench scientist. I didn’t want to run a lab. I didn’t want to come up with new ideas and new ways to test them.

So what did I like?

Talking about it. Always. Telling other people about science, about medicine, about dinosaurs, about whatever.

Thankfully, the universe, powers that be, whatever, know better than I do… and ultimately I ended up where I am now, as a scientific research writer at a big clinic. Back in what is, essentially, a post-collegiate writing center! I’m finally in a place where I use my gift on the regular.

Well, half of it anyway.

The other half was definitely this blog.

An illustrative example for you…

At work, I say “epistaxis as a result of digital trauma…”

On the Internet, I say “nosebleed because you dug too deep. Get your fingers out of there. Geez.”

A different way of saying exactly the same thing. One gets published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings (hopefully) and the other makes someone laugh, but get it while they’re laughing.

And that’s the other half.

The things that makes me the happiest about writing now, at work and on the internet… and the thing that made me the happiest then, in the Writing Center… was the impact it had on people. And on me. Equal and opposite forces. An action and a reaction. Both things leaving the encounter changed.

At work, I help people make their science understandable and accessible. I cannot tell you how rewarding it is to see something in print, to get a funding notice for a grant… but most of all, to have an author I’ve previously worked with come back an improved writer. That’s the best best. (I’m talking to you, Dr. Kanth!) I learn about crazy things like deformed pancreases and what a vitamin D deficiency really does to your body (it’s not just rickets, yo)… I take that away, and someone takes something completely different away from me. A better technique for incorporating literature into a Discussion section, a modified sentence structure, a new way to format a table. Some little piece of communication.

It always happened that way at the Writing Center too. There was this kid one time, a freshman that I coached, and a professor made him cry in front of his entire class during the first week of school when he pronounced a word incorrectly. My heart broke for him. Absolutely broke. There was little I could actually do besides listen and encourage him and help him to communicate better. And seriously, by the end of the semester, he was volunteering to speak in front of the class. I’m not trying to say that was necessarily because of me, but I do know that he and I were both changed.

Here’s what I said about it on December 7, 2004 (Writing Center reflection style, again)–

I have been continually impressed with Jason this semester. He has determination and work ethic like no one I have ever met. I can say with confidence that having been faced with the same situation, I would have become very apathetic toward my work, sure that I could do nothing to please the teacher. I would have been very angry, but Jason never was. As much as I feel like I helped him to come out of his shell, he showed me the way that a person can handle difficulties gracefully. Through all of these difficulties, I am really glad that I got to be Jason’s coach.

And I think that maybe, just maybe, that’s what Picasso meant. When you give your gift away, this intangible gift that is the purpose of your life, you don’t lose anything. The little space you opened up is filled with something even better, something different and new and exciting. A new facet on your perspective. And the person who took that little piece of your gift away? They grow it– they grow it into something completely new, and different, and exciting inside themselves. Like planting a seed, or rooting a plant cutting.

At least, that’s what Picasso said means to me.

Communicating with words, erudite and crass, is my mission and my jam, my calling and my thang. I can do it for science, I can do it for life, I can do it for the twisted workings of my brain, and I can do it for others.

For others though, that’s my favorite part. I can brag about my sister-in-law if she’s having trouble doing herself (she’s always have trouble doing it herself– Sister Doctor just got the biggest honor you can get in all of medical school and tells people it’s “just” an organization thing. Sigh.). I can proofread and format a resume for someone who has lost a job. I can fix up a poster when someone panics a week before a conference. These are the things I can do. The gifts that I can share. Always something in return, of course, even if it’s just the satisfaction of having been able to do something when I would otherwise be helpless. And I like that so much.

The Writing Center helped me to find my special purpose… not the same special purpose that Steve Martin came across a little prematurely in The Jerk (Trista, let’s watch that this weekend! trip to Family Video!), but a special purpose in the sense that his mom really meant it. I couldn’t have done what I do now if I hadn’t pursued all of the sciences, so I’m glad that I did the chemistry degree and the grad school with all the STDs and the like, but at the time, science was always the goal. Not so, it turns out! The Writing Center was to be the place I circled back to, in another form, yes, but the same idea. I work with authors with all ranges of education levels, backgrounds, accents, talent and skill levels on far more topics than I could ever possibly fully understand, but regardless of all that– I help people get their words out, to be heard, to share, and in return, I am constantly changed.

It’s funny that way back in 2004, I worked so hard with other Writing Center coaches to present on what we called “The Ripple Effect” at a writing center conference… but only as an abstract and beautiful thing that I mostly hoped would happen. Good news: it did. It does. Always.

Here we are at that sweet writing center conference-- Sylvia right in the middle :)
Here we are at that sweet writing center conference– Sylvia right in the middle 🙂

Well… this is awkward. I go searching to find a link to take you to the Writing Center website and find out it’s now called the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center. Makes sense. Still in Walker 107. A rose by any other name, I guess! More importantly, M for Multiliteracies is basically just an upside-down W for Writing… so… we’re good.

Oh wait... apparently I did know. I took this picture when I was there for Winter Carnival in 2012. Well then...
Oh wait… apparently I did know. I took this picture when I was there for Winter Carnival in 2012. Well then…

U is for ulcers… and other things that maybe aren’t completely your fault.

Nerds., Recurring Themes, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The letter U has been bugging me and over the last several days, I have written and then deleted thousands of words about all sorts of things. The unexpected was a good thought, but I really already hammered that point home when I first started writing last fall. Ululation is what came to mind when I made my initial list, but pretty much all I had to say about that was, “Dang, that’s an excellent way to express strong emotions. Like the whistle on a tea kettle… got to have a way to release the steam…” and then I realized I’d pretty much already done that before, too.  And I had already written about Unicorns back in January. Too bad, too, because I feel like I could have gone the Voldemort direction with that…

But then last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, the story of Nobel Laureates Robin Warren and Barry Marshall popped into my head. (And then I emailed myself a sleepy and disjointed message that I’m now trying to decipher…) Warren and Marshall won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005 for demonstrating that peptic ulcers, previously attributed to type A personalities and high levels of stress, were actually an infectious disease resulting from gastric colonization with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. (So… you count sheep, I count microorganisms. It’s whatever.)

I thought about those ulcers and I thought about all those people for all those years who felt so sick and then felt even worse because they thought it was their own fault– if only I could calm down! Relax a bit! Then I would get better.

Turns out, a prolonged course of antibiotics probably would have been about the only thing to do the trick. I wonder how that felt– good to know it wasn’t your own fault? Sucky that you felt like it was for so long?

And yet, ulcer sufferers aren’t the only group of patients to have blame placed squarely on their own shoulders. Many other disease sufferers are seen the same way– tummy troubles? Unless you can get a diagnosis of Crohn’s or celiac disease, you end up in the IBS catchall and if you could just eat better, reduce your stress, whatever, you’d be fine. Mental illness too… unless you’ve suffered from one, there’s just no way to know what it’s like and we have very little understanding of why. But truly, I can imagine nothing worse than fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome or any other number of exceptionally difficult to diagnose autoimmune and rheumatological disorders… throw in the fact that women are much more likely to suffer than men and we recognize quickly why the term “hysterectomy” was coined (because women needed all their lady bits removed to cure hysteria…. I’m not even kidding… feel free to rage, I’ll wait…).

 

Once upon a time, Antonie van Leeweunhoek looked through his homegrown microscope to observe what he called “animalcules” that later proved to be the agent of infectious disease. (Note: I really liked the book Microbe Hunters. It’s an over-dramatized, yet accurate, story of the history of microbiology and very engrossing if you’re into that sort of thing.) Eventually, we as a society stopped believing in humors, airs, and miasmas and started recognizing the reality that was contagion. Today, researchers work tirelessly to investigate pathways of cause and effect; to uncover the mechanism behind the diseases we still don’t understand. And someday, I have to believe the blame will end up in the right place… that is to say, off the sufferer’s shoulders.

But what about societal ailments?

Those are a little tougher… tougher to recognize. Tougher to understand. Tougher to cure.

What do I mean by societal ailments?

Things like obesity and fat-shaming.

Things like racial intolerance and categorizing young black men as thugs.

Things like blaming a woman for her own rape because of the clothes she was wearing.

Things like assuming homelessness is self-inflicted.

These things have causes too. Some personal, most not. Personal accountability is important, of course, but ultimately, the causes are insanely complex. Insidious. Difficult to pinpoint and even more difficult to comprehend.

I have, of course, a million thoughts on the above examples. I’m sure you do too. The point I think it’s really important to make here, though, is that all of these things are a little more like ulcers than we may realize.

You see, even the cause and effect of H. pylori infection and gastric ulcer is subject to mitigating circumstances. Approximately 80% of the world is estimated to be colonized by H. pylori, yet far fewer people than that actually ever have overt symptoms of disease, be it gastritis, ulcer, or cancer. Many other factors play a role, things we still don’t completely understand (although, guys, my friend, Dr. Jones from Indiana (I am not even kidding!) made major strides in figuring out some of those factors).

{I got some images from here and here... but I assure you, this composite did not exist until now.}
{I got some images from here and here… but I assure you, this composite did not exist until now. You believe me, right?}

We can’t control the world we grow up in anymore than we can control the microorganisms that colonize our body or the genes our cells express. So maybe, just maybe, we can stop blaming each other… stop blaming ourselves for every little thing, and look to the humble ulcer as an example of why.

 

This should have been the first thing I said, but dang: NERD ALERT!!!

J is for Jon Kabat-Zinn and… j’Mindfulness?

Awesome Things, Recurring Themes, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Too much of a stretch for the letter J?

Don’t care! Poetic license!

J is for the author and psychologist Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of the book Full Catastrophe Living and a huge proponent of mindfulness (no, it doesn’t really start with a j, silent or otherwise).

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{Source}

Although I haven’t actually finished reading the book yet (it’s a monster!), I am becoming more and more interested in the idea of mindfulness. Or more than idea, really– the science of mindfulness. (It’s a science that literally has it’s own journal, peer-reviewed and PubMed-indexed. Dang.) It’s another one of those things that keeps coming up over and over and over again… and the universe only has to put something in my face so many times before I actually take notice.

Would I have admitted to mindfulness being a legitimate science even 6 months ago? Absolutely not. The excellent thing about being an actual scientist (despite my work place’s unwillingness to call me one– only scientists can be trusted with a per diem!) is that I’m totally cool with allowing the evidence to change my mind. With regard to mindfulness, my mind is just about completely changed.

And I’m not the only scientist who feels that way. As I was contemplating mindfulness as a topic for the letter J (because… J… right…), I came across this Humans of New York (HONY) post.

Humans of New York on Facebook
Humans of New York on Facebook

Mindfulness, inner voice, meditation, introspection– it’s all kind of the same thing. The new age mumbo jumbo that has always intrigued me, yet turned me away because… well, because I am a scientist, darn it! And I thought I was supposed to be against all that!

According to this guy though, lots of scientists are into mindfulness and the like. And I am certainly convinced of that after attending the HMO Research Network (HMORN) conference back at the beginning of May. I saw several oral and poster presentations presenting hard evidence* suggesting that mindfulness practices improve physiological measures of health in patients with diabetes, heart disease, and several psychological conditions. It’s certainly not a panacea, as nothing is, but to think about the power our minds have over our bodies is amazing. To see evidence of it? Even more so.

For example, people with diabetes could literally reduce their hemoglobin A1c by 1 – 2% over the course of an 8 week mindfulness practice. If you’re familiar with glycemic control in the context of diabetes, that will undoubtedly impress you. That’s a number that takes considerable time and effort to change, and it’s a really good measure of diabetes management.

 

Because I’m always quoting Mumford and Sons:

In these bodies you will live, in these bodies you will die. Where you invest your love, you invest your life.

— Awake My Soul, Mumford and Sons

Isn’t that it? Mindfulness? Investing in yourself… love here meaning time and energy; a moment for yourself.

 

I know, I sound like I drank the Kool-Aid and that’s that. Not the case, I assure you.

For months my therapist has been gently suggesting meditation and breathing and such… mindfulness practices. Every time, I nodded my head like a good girl, an agreeable girl, but in my head, I thought he might be Looney Toons… at least a little too “new age” for my liking.

He knew I’d come around though. And I did. Good call, Dr. C!

HMORN piqued my interest for seriously and I started reading Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book. Then, all at once, we had a grand rounds on mindfulness and I had a therapy appointment where once more Dr. C tried to convince me in his nonchalant way that mindfulness is where it’s at… the confluence of all these events was somewhat striking and it wasn’t until then that I realized I didn’t have to be good at mindfulness right away and that I could ease into it.

Doing something I’m not good at?! Ugh! That’s not how I prefer to operate, but at least it seemed slightly less daunting.

So I started doing 4-7-8 breathing… all the time. In the middle of the day, when I’m feeling stressed, first thing in the morning, and before I go to sleep. It’s so easy, even a skeptical nerd like me can do it. I just close my eyes, breath in for 4 counts, hold it for 7, then exhale for 8… times three in a row… several times a day. I don’t know why it works, but it does. When I open my eyes again, I feel like I’m coming back from somewhere else. Every time. Try it!

Here’s a video from the real deal (i.e. not me) Dr. Andrew Weil. My favorite part is in the beginning when he is describing the yogic way you’re supposed to breath and says, “no idea what that means in terms of Western physiology, but they’re the ones who invented it, so we should do what they say.”

I like that– just because you don’t know why it works, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

I don’t envision myself sitting on a pillow for hours at a time in a quest for nirvana, but I certainly don’t think it would hurt to take baby steps toward a more mindful style of living. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s mindful-based stress reduction seems to be a good start!

 

*I say hard evidence here to mean something that is measurable, but relatively un-bias-able. There are, of course, all sorts of validated self-report questionnaires that can be used to measure outcomes of mindfulness practices, but I always wonder about how “real” that is… likely because it’s not my field, not my comfort zone. But in the studies I’m discussing here, people were actually drawing blood and making laboratory-based measurements of different compounds. That’s what I mean by “hard” evidence.

Not in the prison way.

 

 

And since we’re talking about mindfulness, let’s briefly touch on the complete opposite for a moment– mindlessness. Or, as I like to call it, The Bachelorette. A couple of my Marshfield friends got me into it this season and I’m hooked, it’s like checking out completely for two hours and liking it. And it makes Mondays so much better! Plus: girls night, every Monday! Tonight we even had oatmeal cream pies (mmmm… Little Debbie).  Anyway, Marcus and Brian… right?! RIGHT?! I wish I could say Josh on account of being at the letter J, but… I just can’t. Enough now.

A science project with a missing piece. Where are my shoes?

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My sister-in-law Kayla, Sister Athletic Trainer, is an absolute genius at puzzles.

I don’t mean that Kayla likes puzzles, although I suspect she does. I mean that she is literally a puzzle genius. She can walk by a table holding a 12,000 piece puzzle entitled “sky on a cloudy day” and find at least 6 pairs of matching pieces before I can even figure out which way to orient the picture on the box.

I am not being facetious.

Maybe Kayla has just had a lot of practice. She has spent three of our last 11 week long cottage vacations doing puzzles as she recovered from major knee surgery (as good as she is at puzzles, she’s not exactly awesome at keeping her own ligaments from tearing). Maybe it’s a gift from God or something. (Drop Dead Gorgeous reference… anyone?) I don’t know. But she’s real good.

At the moment, I feel like I’m staring at a complicated and beautiful puzzle and all that I have left is one particularly challenging bush or patch of sky or something. Once I get a couple pieces in place, the whole dang thing is going to fall together, but I can’t figure out where to start and I am le frustrated! (The “le” is intentional– I’m pretending that the word frustrated is French.)

Here’s what’s up:

In my job (like my real J-O-B) I work as a scientific research writer, which basically means that I help clinicians and scientists to write grants and manuscripts (and yes, sometimes even eulogies and other speeches and such) about whatever scientific endeavor they favor at the moment. I’ve worked on tons of different things. It’s awesome, really, because as much as I dig STDs, 6 years of nothing but gonorrhea and chlamydia got to be a little bit much. I’m not that into it. In my current job, I get to learn about new and interesting things all the time– oncology, genetics, bioinformatics, cerebral palsy, Alzheimer’s disease, chronic kidney disease, pancreas divisum, diabetes, neuroprostheses, patient navigation, and the list goes on. It’s awesome… like being in school minus the grades plus a real salary. Life is good.

Because I really love science and because nerdiness is my life, not just my job, I get quite invested in the things I do. And it’s all that much easier to get sucked in when I work with really passionate investigators… and so many of these investigators, just wow. These clinicians see a problem in their practice and come to us to either study the problem or solve the problem, and it’s inspiring. I have three projects swirling around in the back of my mind all the time right now. And there’s something about them that’s similar, they are related, they are somehow the answer to one another’s problems, but I can’t figure it out. That’s my puzzle. And it’s becoming my obsession. How can I make these things work together for the good of patients? I won’t know until I can fill in the sky!

Not long ago, I worked with a pediatric nephrologist and learned about Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS)– a rare genetic disorder that results in cilia malfunction and many consequent symptoms affecting nearly every organ system in the body. Because the disease is so rare, finding care for these kids, especially coordinated care with specialists who truly understand the disease, has always been a major problem for BBS families. Recognizing that challenge, Dr. Haws started The Treatment Center for BBS at the Marshfield Clinic to provide coordinated, comprehensive care for patients around the country… and even around the world. It is the only BBS clinic in North America and has already served 16 individuals from 14 different families in its 3 clinics to date. I helped Dr. Haws capture survey results from providers and families that participated in the clinics and the comments from the grateful families were overwhelming. I was particularly struck by the woman who blogs here at 71toes.com (polydactyly is a common symptom of BBS and her family of 7 was no exception– how clever!) as she documented her family’s participation in the clinic. So cool!

Coordinated care for kids with special medical needs… it’s a thing that’s done well for many kids at Marshfield Clinic. But what about kids in the foster care system?

I have also spent a lot of time working closely with the medical director of the Marshfield Child Advocacy Center. She is totally committed to creating a Foster Care Medical Home (FCMH) for kids in the foster care system in Central Wisconsin. Medical homes are a really effective and interesting way to make sure that healthcare needs are met in a timely, consistent, and patient-centered manner and it’s something Marshfield Clinic has really embraced in recent years resulting in huge cost savings as well as huge reductions in the need for emergency care and hospital readmissions. We don’t have one for kids in the foster care system, though, and they likely really need it. At the moment, I’m working with Dr. Iniguez to complete an American Academy of Pediatrics planning grant for the FCMH and we just completed our third of four focus groups with foster care providers and past participants. Holy… wow! These families. I mean, I was into it before, I thought it was a great idea… now? I’m smitten! I want this to succeed, to help these families, so very, very badly! I am committed. But how? Where do we find the funding? Whose going to coordinate the care? Can it be like the BBS clinic?

And finally, behavioral health. I told you about my big fat $1.5 million HRSA grant? The one that kept me from blogging for over a week, right? What I didn’t tell you was this: due to a “misinterpretation” of the guidelines, the grant was triaged without being reviewed. WTF, right? I know, I’m furious, but trying to be cool about it… because the program is just way too important to let die now. Yes, it was a big mistake. No, I was not at fault (thank goodness, right?!). But dang, do I ever feel responsible… disappointed… dejected even. It was unpleasant news for everyone involved. And now we’re looking for another way. Another way to bring behavioral health services to patients in the primary care setting who desperately need them, but cannot get them due to the provider shortages we face in our area. How does this fit in? Well, you know who else desperately needs behavioral health services but can’t get them? Kids in the foster care system. These kids benefit tremendously from the notion of trauma-informed care… care that keeps in mind, always, that these kids have been through a really stressful, really awful situation and that those traumas subconsciously inform their every single action.

So, in conclusion, I feel like there’s something there… an invisible thread weaving its way through these projects and constantly tickling the back of my mind. It alerts me to the fact that there’s something in common, some answer that I’m overlooking, some person who needs to be contacted or informed or something. I just can’t find what that something is at the moment. I am missing a vital piece of the puzzle– I’ve got to find my special purpose! (The Jerk, yes?)

 

Two winters ago, my husband’s grandfather set up a card table in the living room and worked on a puzzle all winter to keep himself occupied while it was so cold. He did a bigillion piece puzzle or something and it had a lot of sky in it. Lots and lots of plain, blue pieces spread out on the table. And when he got to the very end? One was missing.

There was one piece of sky that was blank.

And it stayed blank for a while.

Until one day, Ed, my grandfather-in-law, bent down to put his shoe on and found a puzzle piece in it. It was in his shoe! Right there! All along! He snapped it in and the puzzle was complete.

I’ll find the piece. I’ll make the connection. We’ll make the foster kids a medical home and extend behavioral services to the population that needs it.

Where are my shoes?

Better yet… where is my sister-in-law???

My grant! It was ROUND!

Long-Winded Metaphors, Silver Linings, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Imagine for a moment that the world really had been flat when Columbus decided to sail around it. He’d have literally fallen off the face of the Earth.

His trip took a long time and I can’t imagine that cell service reached that far meaning that contact with home was non-existent. As such, people probably thought that he did fall off the face of the Earth.

Last Thursday, I said yes to a real big grant with a very short timeline.

And as you may have noticed, I sailed my ship right off the face of the Earth.

Or so you thought!

But like the world, my grant was round, and here I am! Back among the living! (Just a little tired…)

Sigh of relief though. That was a doozy! The grant still isn’t technically out the door and I’ve spent most of the day today making minor tweaks and changes and edits and such, but for the most part, it’s ready to go. Monday is the official deadline, and on Monday, “send” shall be clicked. Huzzah!

In the meantime, I had a total It’s a Wonderful Life moment. My house was a MESS! I almost took before and after cleaning pictures last night… but it was simply too horrifying to even be funny. We had crossed the line. (See! I matter! I really do!)

My gmail inbox has 55 unread emails– and that’s after deleting the junk! (Huge apologies if I’ve been ignoring you!)

Insane Inbox

I have an episode of Downton Abbey on the DVR (what that whaaaaat?!).

(It's the Masterpiece Classic one. Permission to judge.)
(It’s the Masterpiece Classic one. Permission to judge.)

My nail polish is flaking off to a pathetic point and I haven’t even had the time to pick at it. (But I love picking at it!!)

Nail Polish

And I haven’t posted on Under the Tapestry in over a week!!!

No Posts

Oy. None of this is ok. Thank goodness for this upcoming weekend!

But there are some reasons why the insane hours and the seriously mentally taxing work (and not just mentally! I hurt my finger on a staple! writing can be physically taxing too!) was completely worth it… there were some silver linings, if you will.

First, I learned A LOT. About A LOT.

Unfamiliar funding mechanism, unfamiliar topic, unfamiliar PI. But not anymore.

I could write another HRSA grant, and I could do it well. (Fingers crossed HRSA thinks it’s written as well as I think it is.) Especially given more time. Because seriously, I could have used more time. A lot more time.

The topic– fascinating!! I have a personal interest in improving access to behavioral health services (because remember, I’ve kind of cra-a-azy) and I think the proposed project offers a really wonderful way to do that in our community. Very easy to get on board. Not as easy to learn the material. But I read and read and read (and googled and googled and googled) and I’ve come out the other side with a much better understanding of the role that different types of health professionals can play in behavioral healthcare as well as how the different pieces of the organization I work for can fit together to make that happen. Fascinating stuff!

And the PI… she was wonderful. Truly a dream to work with. She’s passionate about what she does and really understands how to make care better for patients. And that’s why she does what she does and why I wanted to help her do more of it. She makes all those hours worth it… and will continue to do so as I cash in on some favors I’m owed to help advance some other program grants I’ve been toying around with. (Mr. Burns-style excellent.)

So, yes, I am tired. And my poor husband is starved near to death. But we survived it. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat, even if it meant there was another week where we couldn’t chat.

(That’s not to say I haven’t missed you, because I have! And dearly!)

Anyway, I’ve sailed back to you, little lovelies! Back to Earth, back to normal, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Yay!!

Advent for Thirty: Joy!

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I wasn’t really sure what to write about joy. But I got home from work one day last week and had a package waiting for me on the counter. It came all the way from Alaska and this is what was inside:

Treat yo self! In cross stitch! omg!!
Treat yo self! In cross stitch! omg!!

My friend Aimee (yes, that Aimee!) sent me a treat yo self cross stitch! I’m so in love with it! It’s just genius! And it brought me a ridiculous amount of joy! Such an awesome and unexpected surprise!

I sent my sister a picture right away (she was super impressed and super jealous, as anticipated) and then set about deciding where to hang it. I wanted to see it pretty much all the time and to be awake while near it… so I settled on my office. Right by my monitor.

I hung it there. It made me smile– and does so again every time I look at it. And then I realized, in my office, I’ve surrounded myself with little items that bring me joy!

Surrounded by joy... in my office!
Surrounded by joy… in my office!

You can see my treat yo self cross stitch to the left of my monitor. Above that is a line from the Mumford and Sons song Roll Away your stone about grace. The best picture ever of my niece and my puppy makes up the background of my desktop. Other family photos (including one of four generations including me, my mom, my grandma, and my great-grandma) are above. To the right is the super clever science clock my brother made me when he was in high school… apparently my sister picked up on my love of science at some point too and the stuff gonococcus (the bacteria that causes gonorrhea– do STDs bring me joy? Yeah, little bit…) on the left is from her. I’ve also got a Michigan Tech husky pup and lots and lots of pictures from the UP (also taken by Aimee). What you can’t see are all the other microbiology and squirrel jokes I’ve got tacked up, the hand drawn pictures made by another Aimie’s kids, the framed fall leaves from my grandma’s house, or the quilted pine tree with an inspirational message sewn on the back (I can’t even talk about it– it makes me cry every time) that my friend Jess’s mom made for me that hangs by the door.

(I’m suddenly noticing a severe lack of dinosaurs and Harry Potter… will have to do something about that.)

Work can, of course, be tough at times. But the environment I have created for myself is one that is jam packed with joy. And when I thought about that, the more I realized that my house is the same way. So many reminders of the things that bring me joy in my life!

Things like my family. All of it!

The whole big Vonck-Stankowski-Drengler-Krueger-Space clan!
The whole big Vonck-Stankowski-Drengler-Krueger-Space clan!

There has been no greater joy in my life thus far than the day I married Seth and got to celebrate with all of our family and friends! All in one place! So much happiness! It was perfection!

And books, so very, very many books. I love books and they are everywhere in my house.

So many books... in so many places...
So many books… in so many places…

Apparently, some things never change. When I was really little, I didn’t sleep with a stuffed animal or a blankie– I slept with a book under my arm. For me, reading books is a huge source of joy!

And of course, these two, they bring me joy every single day!

My snugglers!
My snugglers!

The way my husband and my pup snuggle just kills me– it’s the sweetest!!

And there are a million other little things that bring me joy…beautiful dishes (especially Polish pottery), when it snows so lightly that you can see each individual flake perfectly formed on your mitten or your windshield, when my puppy tries to catch leaves in her mouth, connecting with other Michigan Tech grads, tinsel, making someone else laugh, and I could go on and on of course, because the list of things that bring you joy should be a long one!

Despite my long list, there are definitely times when I simply cannot find joy… in anything. In fact, it happened most recently at the end of September– we talked about that here. Intellectually, I know that there are a lot of things that should and usually do bring me joy. But I’m not always capable of feeling it.

I am doing well right now as I approach 30. Joy comes easily and I’m feeling pretty good. But I can hear the voice of depression inside me. It’s suggesting we perhaps try to go drug-free… which at this point in my life I know is as ridiculous as a type 1 diabetic listening to their pancreas tell them that they need to go without insulin. Nice try, brain. It’s just not going to work for me.

I was trained in chemistry, then in microbiology, and now I work in medicine. I know better than to think I can outsmart my brain chemistry… and yet those insidious thoughts sneak in, hell bent on robbing me of my joy. But at 30, I’ve finally learned that I cannot let that happen– because what’s life without joy?!

Thanks to Advent for Thirty for convincing me to reflect on that! Advent for the win!!

Silver Lining: Precancerous Tubular Adenoma

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Let’s just get this out there: if you’re embarrassed or grossed out by so called “bathroom talk,” this may be a post you want to skip.  But, as the book says, everybody poops.  So maybe talking about it is sometimes ok.  It can certainly be funny.  So here I go.

Bathroom talk is pretty much my first language.  I know what you’re thinking– didn’t you say that science was your first language in your last post?!  Good point!  And bonus points for observational skills!  But here’s what you may not know: the thing I studied for so very, very long in grad school was STDs.  Gonorrhea and chlamydia to be specific.  Boom.  Bathroom talk.  But I digress…

I love to run, but my intestines seem to resent me for even trying and I end up in frequent, urgent need of the facilities.  (Euphemisms… something else I’m good at.)  Twice, I didn’t make it.  (J, you know who you are, I’m so sorry for all the jokes!  I can totally relate and you can feel free to take a shot or two at your convenience!)  At least one of those times I made it to the woods.  The other time it was blessedly dark.  I have been frustrated and I have raged.  I have seen doctors, read books, searched the internet (wowie zowie, right?! the internet is pretty sure I am dying), and finally managed to get an appointment with a gastroenterologist who ultimately recommended that I undergo a colonoscopy and endocscopy to try to locate the source of the problem.  Cool.

(Well, not so cool when the doctor who actually did the colonoscopy turned out to be someone I work with on a regular basis professionally.  Pretty sure I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again.  Thank goodness for email.)

The procedure was pretty much a piece of cake.  Yes, even the prep.  You know things have gotten out of control in your life when drinking a gallon of laxative is more pleasant than your basic every day experience.  (No cramping!  No pain!  You know it’s coming!  What’s not to like?!)  After the procedure I was truly hoping for the worst—obvious inflammation, a biopsy result indicative of something real, but also treatable.  Anything to slap a label on.  Someone to tell me that the craziness of my intestines was not just a figment of my imagination.  But, alas, that was not the case.  All of the biopsies from the small and large intestine came back negative, no indication of what could be wrong.  From here, we will proceed with a lactose intolerance test.  (Ummmm… yeah.  I’m lactose intolerant.  I don’t need a test to tell you that.  Give me some ice cream and you’re going to want to leave the room within 30 minutes.   Guaranteed.  But I’ll do the test, whatevs.)  So that was disappointing to say the least.

But wait… there’s more…

During the procedure, the doctor also removed a polyp that proved to be a precancerous tubular adenoma and you’ll be scheduled for routine screening colonoscopy every 5 years from here on out.  Ok, bye.

Literally, that was the end of the conversation.  Um, dang.  Drop the mic, walk away… at least that’s what it felt like from my end.

I’m 29 years old and have no family history of colon cancer.  In fact, I have very little family history of cancer at all.  I’m like a dang mosquito when it comes to family members getting screened (“Have you had your annual mammogram yet? Now?  How about now??? … No???  Would you get a mammogram if I sent you some data about mammograms???”) and I spend the vast majority of my working life studying breast, colon, and prostate cancer.  So I did some math (got to put that PhD to work!) and realized that I’m not technically due for a colon cancer screening of any sort for another TWENTY-ONE years.  Twenty.  One.  And it dawned on me… if my intestines hadn’t gone bananas, I would have gotten cancer.  Colon cancer.  Before the age of 50.  And it would have been diagnosed by symptoms, which means it probably would have been advanced.  Wow.  Silver-freaking-lining.  My oops-I-crapped-my-pants moment (have you seen that SNL skit—so funny, YouTube it.  But look, a hyperlink, I did the work for you!) prompted me to go back to the doctor (for something like the 5th time), which prompted my referral to GI, which prompted my colonoscopy, which may have literally saved my life, or at the very least prevented a whole boatload of unpleasantness.  Again: wow.

That tangled mess of intestines was like that tangled mess of threads… it was confusing, troublesome, a literal pain in the butt.  But wow, did that turn out differently than I expected.  It all seems to have been part of something so different than I could ever have imagined.  I love that.

PS(A): Are you over 50 years old?  Yes?  Have you had a colonoscopy?  If not, pretty please just do it.  It’s so worth it.

PPS:  I’d still love a diagnosis on the intestinal trouble, but considering the whole removal-of-precancerous-polyp thing, I’m going to give them a minute to figure it out…

Life is But the Weaving… and Spooky Action at a Distance

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First, as promised, the poem for the more spiritually-minded:

 

Life is But the Weaving (The Tapestry Poem) by Corrie Ten Boom

 My life is but a weaving

Between my God and me.

I cannot choose the colors

He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;

And I in foolish pride

Forget he sees the upper

And I the underside.

Not ‘til the loom is silent

And the shuttles cease to fly

Will God unroll the canvas

And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful

In the weaver’s skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver

In the pattern He has planned

He knows, He loves, He cares;

Nothing the truth can dim.

He gives the very best to those

Who leave the choice to Him.

The idea of life as a tapestry, a needlepoint, or a cross stitch isn’t particularly novel, but for some reason I had either (a) never heard of it or (b) never registered hearing about it until recently.  I heard about it at church and it just resonated with me.  It was one of those days when you sit there in the pew, certain that the priest/pastor/rabbi/whatevs is looking straight at you, into your soul, and telling you the-exact-thing-you-absolutely-must-hear-at-this-moment.  It made me think about all those times I’ve ranted and raved about this, that, or the other thing only to find out later that it was just a necessarily dark thread in a much bigger and more beautiful picture.  Something I couldn’t have imagined, something I didn’t think I wanted, but something I, in fact, needed.

If religion/spirituality isn’t your thing, I totally get that.  And I can speak your language too, because science, you see, is my mother tongue.  That’s where I’m really fluent and that’s where I feel most comfortable.  (Writing in medical-ese is my day job!)  So, when I think about this concept, this tapestry thing, in more scientific terms, two ideas come to mind:

1)  Schrodinger’s (someday I’ll learn how to add a diaresis above the o, sorry Schrodinger, friend!) theory of quantum entanglement, or what Einstein (rather jerkily, actually) dubbed spooky action at a distance.  While Einstein’s intent was definitely not kind, I actually like the phrase spooky action at a distance.  It sounds so… Halloween-style fun, doesn’t it?  Anyway, in very, very rough terms, this is the concept that two particles that share a quantum state can never truly be separated even if they are no longer in the same vicinity.  That is to say, if you know something about the one particle, you automatically know something about the other particle because they are inextricably and forever linked.  Inextricably.  And forever.  And since every atom in your body has at one point in the history of time been a part of something else– a stick of gum, a bumblebee, a dinosaur, a blade of grass, a distant star– it’s hard not to believe that all of these things, all of us on this earth, all of us in the universe, are somehow, at least in some small, quark-scale way, connected.  (As a side note: I’m pretty sure most of my atoms come from dinosaurs.)

2)  Or, in slightly more simple, Newtonian-physics, equal-and-opposite-reaction terms: the butterfly effect.  Like the movie.  Like the phrase, “a butterfly flaps its wings in China…” you get the rest.

Of course, if you’re like me, all of these ideas– spiritual, religious, scientific, and proverbial– appeal to you.  In that case, I would highly recommend Thank God for Evolution by the Reverend Michael Dowd… it’s a great read!  The way he blends science, spirituality, religion… the universe… it’s beautiful and makes such lovely sense.  I really enjoyed it.  (Thanks, Dad!)

Regardless of how you want to think about, it’s hard not to believe, for me anyway, that the things that happen to us and the things that happen because of us don’t happen in a world that revolves around us.  (Double negatives much?  I’m leaving it…)  Therefore, the implications, the ramifications, the causes and the effects, the bigger picture, is really something we can’t entirely wrap our heads around.  No matter how much we think a decision through, there will always be consequences we can’t anticipate.  No matter how much we analyze something, there may always be a cause we can’t even imagine.

That’s not so say that planning and analysis, careful consideration of causes and effects, can’t be beneficial.  But it is to say that there’s more to this world, this life, than we can really comprehend.  I’ve only very, very recently, and very, very inconsistently found the ability to sit back and put a little bit of faith into the idea that the whole, big picture, the one I am completely incapable of comprehending at this moment, is exactly what it’s meant to be.

So, back to the analogy of the tapestry… sometimes the threads are chosen for us, sometimes we get to pick out a strand or two.  Sometimes we think we know what comes next better than the “weaver,” but perhaps that’s not the case.  And the more I think about it, the more I find reasons to be grateful for the blessings in disguise and the silver linings that seem to line even the darkest of clouds.

Finally, I promised some pictures.  My mom recently taught me to embroider, and I’m pretty psyched… but as in life, the back side is not so pretty.

Underside 1

Of course, if you’re like my mother-in-law at cross stitch or my friend Ellen at embroidery, even the back looks good:

Underside 2Dang, that’s impressive…

But that’s the idea.  In words, of the garden and medical variety, and in pictures, of the messy and the so-good-it-hurts variety.  The underside’s not so bad, but the underside doesn’t make nearly as much sense.  It’s that picture on top, that story we tell when the whole thing comes together, that makes life beautiful.