anna in med school

“A world without pain is hell.”

Check out this documentary to see why.  Never been more thankful for that dull ache in my shoulder instructing me to not move it past a certain angle.

…and HAPPY MATCH DAY to all our fourth years!!!

I am overjoyed to have Emily as the first guest blogger!  Emily is a premedical student from Portland, majoring in biology with a minor in psychology at the University of Oregon.  She works in a neuropathology lab and loves learning about the brain.  Wish her well as she applies for medical school this summer, and follow her at schorrmore.wordpress.com.  Without further adieu…

Gleevec

My mother was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in 1995, when I was about five years old.  The diagnosis was totally unexpected. The oncologist estimated she had about three years to live.

At the time, there were few treatment options.  Our hope was a bone marrow transplant, but even after running several “become-a-donor” events and checking all family members, no one was a match. She went on interferon therapy, which has many serious side effects, including severe flu-like symptoms.  Most days, she hardly had the energy to get out of bed.  After a few years the therapy stopped working.   Her white blood cell count began to rise, a sign the illness was progressing.

Things looked very grim (years later, I learned that they thought she had maybe a few more months to survive).  Then, one night while searching through the internet, my father learned about a Phase I clinical trial for her specific type of leukemia.  An almost-eerie coincidence, it was being run in the city in which we were currently living, Portland.  She was quickly accepted into the trial.  Within weeks of taking a few little pills daily, her blood counts began returning to normal, and real hope returned to our household.

On Thanksgiving Day of the same year she began the trial, Dr. Druker (who ran the study) called with amazing news: my mother was the first person in the world to show up with no evidence of disease on a cyto test.   By the end of her first year on this new drug, she began to feel as she had before leukemia entered her life.

And a few years afterward, the only reminder she had of cancer, besides taking a pill with meals, was when the drug company came by to get her picture for their Gleevec brochures and promotions.  Pictures of her and our whole family (dog included) were in the Oregonian, magazines, and info packets for Gleevec.

Every day that I enjoy now with my mom is thanks to the team at OHSU.  Dr. Druker, NP Blasdel, and everyone there are wonderful.  I’ll probably never be responsible for saving as many lives as Dr. Druker is but, hopefully when I become a doctor, I’ll be able to pay it forward to a small extent, to possibly do for others what he did for my family.

Above are pictures of a young Emily with her mother and brother shortly after Gleevec began to take effect (top) and a more shot (bottom).  Thank you so much, Emily, for letting me share your story!

I took the overnight bus back to Philly.  I was sad to leave Boston, but I’m now grateful for a day to just get back into school mode.  John started work at 7pm last night, so I had a few hours before my 12:15am bus to do a last load of laundry and work on a few projects.

I have a habit of, when I leave a place, taking a moment to look around the room to a) scan for anything I might be forgetting (which happens seriously all the time), and 2) just kind of say goodbye to the place itself, letting my gaze rest for a few seconds on anything particularly significant.  Maybe because yesterday we received two invitations for the weddings of good friends, I let myself read over our old wedding invite, which, lovingly framed by the Shuylers, currently hangs above John’s desk.  I like to think it’s fairly nontraditional.  We came very close to doing everything in evite form, but we were informed that was tacky (I don’t know, I have no manners), so John made a simple postcard-like print, and then we did online RSVPs.

Both lovers of literature, we really wanted to include a short snappy, hopefully not overly cheesy quote (a right amount of cheese is appropriate for weddings, I think).  This I remember clearly: John suggested perhaps a modification of this quote from “Three Women,” “What did my arms do before they held you?”  (I can hear my sister gagging.)

Me: Oh God, we can’t use that.

John: Why not?  It’s sweet.

Me: Well, first of all, it’s about a newborn.  Babies are great, but I so do not want to go there.  Secondly, it’s Sylvia Plath.

John: I like Sylvia Plath.

Me: So do I.  But her marriage is not one I personally would like to emulate.  And then she put her head in an oven.  Not to be insensitive, but I’m pretty sure that disqualifies her from a wedding invite.

And so we opted for a quote from another somewhat depressed writer, James Joyce.  Not sure his marriage with Nora Barnacle was entirely ideal, but I kind of love how his obsession with her lazy eye works its way into all his fiction following their meeting.  From Ulysses, quite possibly the best book ever: “Love loves to love love.”

I couldn’t upload the pdf of our actual invite, but here’s the picture we used as the background, courtesy of the incredibly talented and wonderfully spirited Julie Napear Wichern:

Okay, be honest: who is getting sick and tired of hearing about and seeing pictures of John and me?  I have a feeling I’ll tone it down when we’re back in the same city.

First guest post this Monday!  It’s an incredibly moving story, and I’m so honored for the opportunity to share it.  Trust me, you don’t want to miss it!

1.  I’m normally pretty good about not thinking about the things we can’t afford.  But every now and then, John and I get fixated on something totally extravagant and non-essential.  Today, it is Frye boots, and I can’t help but think back fondly on Abby and Colin’s lovely April wedding, which took place on her family’s farm in the middle of Texas.  I was the only girl there not in boots.  Getting married in boots…I love it!

They’re both chefs.  The food was out of this world!  And they sent us home with individual skillets and recipes and a leftover bottle of champagne.

2.  I’m sitting propped up bed in Boston, taking care of some house-keeping items while John works at the desk a few feet away.  We’re listening to some Iron & Wine, and I’m currently loving The Trapeze Swinger as a study song.

3.  I wish I had taken a picture of breakfast–I used so many colors!  John just made me “mystery tea.”  I’m guessing Afternoon Earl Grey, which I brought back from London a few years ago, and I have no idea how it’s still good.

4.  It’s 50 degrees and sunny in JP, perfect weather for a run around the arboretum…because, as of this week, I can go running!

5.  I want to channel this Hermione quote from the most recent HP movie, in response to Harry telling her that she’s brilliant: “Actually I’m highly logical, which allows me to look past extraneous detail and perceive clearly that which others overlook.”

A few of my med school buddies recently started up Stylus, an artistic and literary journal.  I would really like to submit something, but I’m at a loss.  I have a desktop full of page-long starts but they are all, to put it mildly, boring.  Most of the topics I’ve been trying out are also too broad, like the stuff of longer essays and such, and I would prefer to turn in something short and crisp, not something to which a reader would have to make a commitment, ya know?

So…are there any entries you’ve seen that you’ve particularly liked?  Any that you would like to see me expand upon or clean up?  Or do you have any questions or suggestions?

I welcome any ideas!  And thank you in advance.

I am lobster red.

My logic: I was making up for the months of January and February in terms of vitamin D3 production by the skin, just looking out for my bone density.

John’s logic: I’m an idiot.

While “training” coworker Ben and my replacements at Dana-Farber last June, we were taking a coffee break, shooting the shit like you do, and one of the replacements asked about the lifestyle change, going from that of an English grad student to a premed/soon-to-be med student.  I listed off some of my canned interview-ish answers, and then concluded:

I actually think the new lifestyle kind of suits me.  It’s a lot of stress, but in some ways it’s healthier.  I can pull streams of all-nighters writing papers because, in the end, you have to turn something in and meet the page requirement…it doesn’t really matter if you’re brain-dead at 4am, you just keep writing and revising until the deadline.  That doesn’t really work for science.  If your brain is no longer absorbing the material, you’re done.  Go to sleep.  There’s no point.  Plus, there’s no better feeling than the happiness that rushes over you when you turn in an exam, and you don’t have jack to do over the weekend.  What a gratifying rush!”

(This little rationalization was, of course, before I sat through a med school exam, during a time when I could go to sleep at a reasonable hour the night before an exam feeling prepared, and come out of the exam feeling confident.)

Anyway, my replacement responded gently, “I think you might be misidentifying feelings of relief for those of happiness.  You feel relief after an exam.  Do you really feel happiness?”

Hunh.  Fair point.

Well, whatever it was, it felt pretty damn fantastic after the five-hour Brain & Behavior exam this past Friday.  In the 26 hours preceding, Eric and I pulled a near-all-nighter (so much for the healthier lifestyle), during which we laughed, we cried (I cried…just a little), we made horribly offensive substitutive names for those tricksy parasol cells (of course, “conveniently” named M-cells, whereas their counterparts, midget cells are P-cells), and we ingested copious amounts of broccoli and hummus.

And now, spring break.  So so happy.

She laughs like the Pillsbury Doughboy, sips Scotch and sodas, has a mean hook shot, and still puts my brothers in their place.  Thanks for a wonderful weekend, Mimi!

We’re in the final push before our first brain & behavior exam on Friday.  This afternoon’s practice practical left me a bit disheartened.  As Eric put it: “I went from feeling not confident going in, to terrified.” Yeah, that pretty well sums it up…

Anyway, I likely will not be blogging for the next 48 hours, but I wanted to leave you with this article that my friend Karthik shared and said we should blog about.  Stop by his place sometime: www.karthikm.com.  He’s a pretty impressive kid.

And, oh do I ever have the brain on the mind.  I’m sitting across a biomed library table from Nathalie, and she just said, “I’m just reading about Libya,” but I couldn’t quite hear her.  Me: “Oh my God, what part of the central nervous system is THAT?!”