We’ve been a part of a few monumental moments the past few weeks, some of global importance, others of just importance to me.
Let’s start with the small potatoes and move to the big stuff shall we? The first comes in my lab. It’s now been 6 months in a lab and while I’ve learned a lot, the pace at which I’m learning it lags far behind the pace I was used to in resident. As such, I’ve been waiting and working on the chance to finally learn how to perform a western blot (a way to separate proteins to better understand a substances composition and how a compound might change after chemotherapy, etc). Well, it finally happened. I successfully completed my first western blot. It’s a 3 day experiment that takes approximately 1-2 weeks of leg work before hand to grow cells in a petit dish, treat them with chemo, then study them.
My goal had been to get this skill learned by August—well now you understand what I mean about the pace of this life I lead now!
The next big monument is this one: I was vaccinated against covid-19, at 23 weeks, 1 day pregnant. It was not an easy decision but it was based on a lot of reading, a lot of weighing the risks and benefits and ultimately the decision that the risk of covid and the subsequent problems it could pose to me and this baby outweighed any theoretical risk it might post to either of us.
At Md Anderson it was a streamlined process starting with an auditorium waiting area
An ever-so-official sticky note to mark my group #
A walk to the treatment area complete w large signs about what to expect, etc
The shot itself
And a brief time in the observation area before you go to add your time stamp to the stick it to covid sign
As I walked in to be vaccinated I’ve got to say I welled up with tears and I wasn’t expecting to. But, in light of my life in the lab recently i have an even better understanding and appreciation for how slow science can be sometimes and how painful it can be to get a meaningful result. A vaccine with 95% efficacy is practically unheard of. I feel proud to be a part of science. Proud to be a part of the first round of people getting one step closer to putting an end to this nonsense. No matter the politics, I feel good about my decision and am looking forward to a better year ahead!
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