The story of a mole removal

I had to hustle yesterday morning because, while my mole removal was scheduled for 9:30 AM, my lack of a car meant that I would have to take 3 buses in rapid succession to get there on time. 

Out the door at 8:15, waiting for the bus...and waiting...and waiting...uh-oh.  It showed up at 8:28, 2 minutes before I was supposed to arrive at the transfer point and catch the 2nd bus.  Sure enough, I arrived at the transfer point having missed it by five minutes.

Luckily, Intaglio was still at home, so I called him to figure out an alternate route.  Google Maps delivered: Wait 20 minutes, catch a bus, walk a mile, arrive at 9:36.  9:36?  I could still hear doctors from the medical school grousing about tardy patients. But if I ran...maybe, just maybe I could make it.

Caught the bus, arrived at the stop, dashed the remaining distance to the clinic as fast as I could with an overstuffed, non-ergonomic laptop bag...arrived at 9:36 on the dot.  Whoops!  Luckily, the nurse and PA doing the removal were extremely gracious.

And now for the fun part.  In general, I have no problem with medical procedures, minor or major.  I do, however, have a tremendous hatred/fear of local anesthetic.  Numbness in general makes me extremely queasy.  I've had two moles removed in the past, both of which resulted in some tears and borderline hyperventilation.  But there I was (I thought to myself, in the quivering voice of a martyr), about to get a mole punched out of my arm, totally alone.

It was fine.  I only got queasy when the PA started in with the punch, paused, and said, "I think we're going to need a bigger one."  They stitched me up, and I was out the door in 25 minutes.  So I took the bus back to the transfer point, caught a bus to the university, and...wait, I thought this bus was going to the campus, it's definitely not making the right turn...oh well.  I hopped out of the bus, walked another half-mileish back to the lab, made a few adjustments to an experiment, and walked over to the hospital to catch a talk sponsored by my graduate program.

Unfortunately, by this point, my adrenaline rush had worn off completely so I pretty much dozed through the entire talk.  And not the discrete nodding in and out of consciousness--I slept heavily to the point where I woke up and looked around furtively for glares because I was afraid I had been sleep-talking. 

And then I did homework, had my last ethics seminar class (1/4 done!), and made my way home to celebrate Intaglio's birthday.  Not bad.

Of course, my PI wants to write about the review paper that I've been writing...or, you know, not really writing...It's frustrating, because I really need to work on expanding my knowledge base and writing this paper is truly the best means of doing so, but it's just too easy to push it to the side.  I'm having trouble budgeting time for things that matter.

Speaking of which, my weight has been hovering in the upper 130s for too long, so I've decided to join dietbet--groups are challenged to lose 4% of their body weight in 4 weeks, everyone contributes money, those who meet the goal split the pot evenly.  I think, in order to get back to my goal weight, I need both a tangible reason to focus on it and something that will tickle my competitive spirit. 

Life has been good, but I can't shake the drag of inertia.  I do miss medical school because it elevated my ability to focus and dedicate large chunks of my days to pure work.  I miss that feeling of drive and purpose.  Ever since beginning grad school, I've been trying to recapture it with little success.  It makes me sad when I think about it too much.

A certain lack of rigor

A disturbing trend I've been noticing since starting grad school is the misuse of my personal time.  I work at lab, I socialize, but when I get home, my discipline falls apart.  It's awkward to use the word discipline in that context, because the things I intend to do are, well, things I want to do.  But almost inevitably, I wind up frittering away every last minute of my spare time on the internet, and going to bed far too late as a result. 

I want to read more.  I have books picked out.  I used to love reading.  I don't know why it's so hard to pick up a book anymore.

I want to finish my Afghan.

I want to incorporate cleaning into my day,  so the house isn't a pit by Friday.

I want to write Christmas cards and make packages of caramels for friends and family. 

But the call of Reddit and Facebook are just too great, even if there's absolutely nothing interesting to look at.  The loss of control irritates me, even infuriates me at times.  But like the sweets, my good intentions fail to stick.  My willpower is too limited.  My standards for myself are NOT too high.

Frustrating.  I remember my priorities and values, but I fail to act accordingly.  I'm not sure how to overcome the gap between intent and action.  It's a struggle that's starting to really wear on my nerves.

A week in grad school

Tempeh bacon and warmed chunks of frozen mango with cinnamon.  Jogging to the lab at 7 AM to start an incubation.

Too much butter, too much sugar.  7 or 8 dozen bowls, dishes, plates, mugs, teapots, butter dishes, and salt/pepper shakers that used to belong to my maternal grandmother, brought to Madison by my aunt and uncle.  A half a loaf of lemon pound cake in one day.  Boredom, tears, stress.  RuPaul's drag race.

Trying to go vegan for a week or two in order to clean my system, whatever that means.  Gardein entrees.  Odwalla bars surprisingly don't taste like sawdust.  Feeling pretty good.  Less of a sacrifice than I imagined.

Intaglio playing Halo 4.  His birthday is coming up soon.  I should organize some sort of celebration.

Stat exam today.  Eh.  Mounds of eraser shards after totally overthinking one problem.  Got it in the end.

Dermatology screen last week.  Diagnosed with a dysplastic nevus, to be removed at the end of November.  A little unnerving.  Note that it's not a typical dysplastic nevus: it doesn't fit the A/B/C/D/E's.  The woman doing the screen noted that it's better to think about moles as a gestalt--instead of fretting about large, funny-looking moles, try to notice moles that don't fit the pattern.  My dysplastic nevus is very small and dark, while most of my moles are large and light brown.  Trying not to worry.  When it metastasizes, melanoma goes straight to the brain.  It hasn't changed much that I can tell.  It's probably okay.  I'm still nervous.

Apartment is neater.  Kitchen is still a mess.  Laundry needs to be done.  

Lab work.  Flow cytometer is being unnervingly cloggable.  It took one grad student and a postdoc most of today to fix it, which is how I wound up running samples until 7 PM.  I really need to figure out how to unclog the machine on my own.  (Better to not to clog it in the first place, but it's not like I'm running chunky samples.)

Can't tell if some cultures got contaminated or the cells all just died.  Lab meeting tomorrow at 10 AM.  Will likely be 11 AM or later.  Need to analyze two experiments before that.  I'm hoping to salvage something meaningful.

So yeah.  No real complaints.  I am grateful, life is good.

2 down!

Ran the Tyranena beer run yesterday.  It went pretty well--I cramped up around mile 3 and 12, something that's never happened before, but I was able to tough it out.

Came home, took a shower (I was FREEZING: comfortable during the run, but for various reasons our group wound up milling around outside for 2 or 3 hours, and I had nothing warmer than a running jacket and a Mylar blanket), and then Intaglio tackled the stained carpets with a rug-cleaner he had borrowed from work.  The apartment's looking much better now.

Feeling pretty optimistic that today won't be a repeat of last Sunday.  I just need to keep active.

This week is going to be a whirlwind: Election, blood donation, something like 90 flow tubes to run tomorrow morning, Stats exam next Tuesday, review paper, skin cancer screening, meeting with a committee member.  Among other things.  I need to summon the latent powers of time management I developed in M2...hopefully they haven't atrophied completely.