So I was told that US Airways would be offering free wi-fi on-board their aircrafts for the month of June but the bamas lied; therefore, I’m currently writing this up on Microsoft Word. Just imagine me on a plane at 11 pm Pacific time (seat 31F, next to a preteen who’s flying for the first time) while you read this.
Today (Tuesday, June 8th) was the most difficult day I’ve had at work yet. I must admit I was in a really bad mood when I woke up this morning, and the fact that I watched Lady Gaga’s new video relatively soon after waking up did not help (in fact it made me nauseous). I dragged myself to the lab and started off the morning by doing some genotyping (process of determing the cell make up of the animals, to put it simply) with James. I really like working with James. I’m not sure why, but I feel much more relaxed with him. Also, the things we’ve been doing (Monday we did staining, which is pretty much the process of taking the sections of brains I’ve sliced and staining different structures different colors with various antibodies just so we can see them better) are much more chemistry based, like involving dilutions and creating solutions and whatnot, and I’m in my element, ya’ll.
I should probably explain that the reason I’m working with James is because Jamila went to Europe for some conference this week. That’s something I definitely didn’t realize was apart of research work, travel. These people travel quite a bit. Last week at Andrew’s birthday lunch, a tech who used to work in my lab (Liz, who is super friendly and quiteee cute) was talking about how she got this great, spontaneous opportunity to go to Indonesia for a conference in the fall. I thought this was absolutely awesome. One thing I think about that often frightens me is the possibility that once I have a career, and especially a family, there will no longer be time for me to travel. The realization that these people go all over the world, without being ambassadors or anything like that, definitely has me leaning toward a Ph.D. and research.
After lunch, James and I then dived into perfusion.
Okay, I probably should have given you all a heads up before this moment, but this for real is super gross and if you get freaked out by death or blood in any way, you should REALLY stop reading or skip a couple paragraphs now.
When I was telling you about slicing brains I don’t know if I mention it or not, but there’s absolutely no blood. This is because all the mice are perfused before their internal organs are removed. Perfusion is the act of (to put it bluntly) bleeding out the animal before removing whatever organs are needed. I’m not going to lie, I totally see it from a science point of view, but when I try to step outside of what I think the whole process just kinda of screams ‘inhumane’ to me.
First, the mouse is anesthetized, and when it no longer jumps when you pinch its feet, you know to proceed (We were taking a blood sample in addition to everything I’m about to describe, so at this point we pricked their cheeks and drew blood. I felt like Dexter. I also feel like Dexter when I put the slides of brain slices in my slide boxes.). After that, the mouse is pinned down on it’s back so all of it’s limbs are spread wide and the abdomen is showing. Then, using forceps and scissors you cut away the skin that’s covering the abdomen as well as the top of the ribcage. I think this is probably the worst part. The animal is still alive and their hearts start beating so fast that it makes their mouth open and close and jerks their entire body around.
The animal is pretty much dead at this point, but sometimes the heart continues to beat for a few more seconds. At this point, we stick what looks like a mouse size IV into the heart. This pumps first PBS (which is a basic wash solution we use for a lot of things) and then PFA (which is a diluted formaldehyde solution) into the body. The PBS flushes the entire system; aka the blood (as well as urine and whatnot) starts to just run out of the body and pool in the tray we were using (We did two mice at a time for a total of ten and cleaned up after they were all done, picture that.). The PFA, in addition to further cleaning out the system, makes the bodies incredibly stiff. This is my second least favorite part. When the PFA is being pumped into the body, the hips kind of pulse and the tail starts to wring around kind of slowly and rigidly. I can’t even describe it correctly; it’s just flipping creepy. Each standard sized mouse is on the pump for about twenty minutes (the ob/ob mice, which are the mice without leptin, are more obese so they take a little bit longer).
Once the mouse is stiff, you can cut out any organ you want. James collected livers, which are easy and just come out with one snip. But of course, I’m studying brains and those are a bit more difficult. In order to collect the brain, you must completely decapitate the mouse with scissors (At this point, James had me check that the female mice that had been ovariectomized, and had the procedure done properly. It was really gross.). Then you take the head, peel back the skin, cut the back of the skull off which a razor blade, and cut the rest of the skull off piece by piece with the razor. My third least favorite part simply because of how awful removing the skull sounds. I’ll spare you, but it’s truly horrific.
I did this for about four hours today. It’s really just a delightful process. Something about it really worries me though. For those of you don’t know why I’m on a plane (or who aren’t friends with my mother on Facebook), my grandmother passed away last week and I’m in route to the east coast to attend her funeral and pay my respects. The thing that kind of worries me is, first, that I haven’t been super emotional this past week, in addition, to the fact that I was completely surrounded by death today but it didn’t really affect me or link my brain to my grandmother in any way (Sarah, if you’re reading, I know this sentence is grammatically incorrect, please bear with me.). Part of me thinks I’m really good at disconnecting work from life and part of me thinks it’s not normal that death doesn’t affect me like it does some people I know. I don’t know.
The highlight of my day came when James and I got to the mice that been ovariectomized. James does some things really different than other people. Usually when you anesthetize an animal, you hold then on their back and inject them in the stomach. James thinks this scares them more than necessary, so he grabs them back the tail and injects in them in the butt. I don’t know what happened, either this one girl was scared witless or James hit her bladder, but she peed and DAMN did that piss have range. She managed to pee all over James’s face and in his mouth. I died, absolutely died, as James dropped everything (including the mouse) and ran to the bathroom to wash his face. For the next fifteen minutes, every other sentence was, “Bloody hell, that bitch! Damnit, how dare you?! (James curses a lot, but the fact that it’s all in this great British accent just makes me giggle.)” It was great. My theory lies in that, since female mice essentially become males when you remove their ovaries, they inherit the ability to pee crazy far distances (a second ovariectomized mouse peed hella far, but James had learned his lesson and aimed her butt away from his face).
What I got most out of spending four hours with James was a little insight on his thoughts about Ph.D. versus M.D. While he told me that he thoroughly enjoys research, a part of him wishes he got his M.D. Apparently there are more grants available to people who have their M.D., as well as there being things like specific professor positions where you must have your M.D. to apply. Ultimately, he says it comes down to whether I want to work with people or not. I’m all of a sudden really unsure, I was super into the idea of psychiatry but I really like this research stuff. I don’t know. Upside, Indonesia. Downside, mice with full bladders. Choices, choices. I feel like I have plenty of time to decide, but it’s definitely been on the brain.
So much to think about, so much to say. That’s all for now, people.
Chinwe
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