Delicate Doesn't Even Begin To Cover It

This is a mouse heart. It's pretty massive as you can tell (heavy on the sarcasm). 

Some of my research deals with the blood vessels that supply the heart with blood, the coronary vessels. Mouse coronaries are huge (even heavier on the sarcasm). 

I'm trying to understand how these vessels (along with a couple other types of vessels) form and how they repair themselves if they get damaged. I spent the better part of yesterday with my head in a microscope dissecting out these babies from the surrounding heart tissue. It's a delicate operation, but it's also kind of relaxing.

Growing up, I always thought that I would enjoy being a paleontologist who carefully digs up dinosaur bones with a paint brush or being an art historian who painstakingly restores frescoes on the ceilings of cathedrals.

I think I've found the scientific equivalent.




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Morning Email

My mom emails me every morning. Typically, there's nothing important in the messages. She just wants to say good morning and let me know she's thinking about me.

I look forward to it every day.

This email from last week made me smile. It's soooo my mom.

Here is my inner commentary as I was reading it. 

Mom: Dad was notified by American Express that someone was using his card. American Express cancelled his old card and sent him a new one. 

Me: Boo on people who steal. Glad AmEx is getting it straightened out.

Mom: I do worry about you and Rob using debit cards.

Me: I know. You've told me that before. We like to use debit cards instead of credit cards because it forces us to be more aware of what we're spending.

Mom: I WORRY THAT SOMEONE WILL CLEAN OUT YOUR BANK ACCOUNT.

Me: Wow. My mom is passionate about credit card fraud. How does she even know that all caps equals yelling?

Mom: (AND THAT'S ALL THAT I WILL SAY ABOUT THAT.)

Me. Why is she still yelling at me? And how do parentheses affect the yelling? Do they indicate yelling on the inside? Is this yelling turned inward?

Mom: SORRY, I HIT THE CAPS BUTTON BY MISTAKE.

Me: Ah yes. Everything is now clear. This is the mother I know and love.


And as a side note, I did discuss with her the implications of bringing home baby squirrels. Crisis averted.

And, yes. My mom does sign every email WOW. It's MOM upside down. I love her.

Out Of The Mouth Of Babes

This kid cracks me up. Sometimes I just can't believe the things that come out of her mouth. For instance...

She's in this phase where she like to narrate everything that's going on around her. If you've ever watched a dvd with the bonus director's commentary feature on, you know what I'm talking about. During a trip to Target, she single-handedly offended just about every person we came into contact with. First there was the overweight lady that she pointed to and said, "That lady has a baby in her belly." Next, there was the teenage boy (bless his heart) with acne that she pointed to and said, "That boy has spots on his face!". And finally, there was the old man that she pointed to and yelled (literally yelled), "Hey old man, why don't you go to Florida!".

I have no idea where she got that last one from. Maybe she noticed that there were a lot of old people around on our recent trip to Florida? But, we certainly didn't point them out to her.

Just to give you another little glimpse into her mind... we were eating Dunkin' Donut munchkins the other day and she picked out a jelly-filled one. She took one bite and inspected the middle of it. Then she turned to me and said, "Mom, this donut has blood in the middle...and I like it."

Seriously? Please tell me that this is not the first symptom of an impending Twighlight obsession.

I took this video earlier this week. I wanted to show my mom and dad that Harper can spell her first and last name. She is in fact 3 by the way. Not 5 like she would have you believe. (She's on a 5 kick because she really wants to go to kindergarten and I told her that she can only go when she turns 5. So she's trying to will herself into growing up and in addition convince us to go along with it. Oh, when she learns how to channel that willpower into concrete things...look out! She is going to be a force to be reckoned with.)

I Promise This Blog Is Not Going To Turn Into A Stroke Blog

I really do prefer to write about my kid or weird things my husband does (love you, Rob!). So, I promise that this blog will return to its regularly scheduled programming soon.

But, I just had to share this with you. One of my friends tipped me off about this amazing video. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist, had a massive stroke. Her description of what it feels like to have a stroke is fascinating. But what is even more remarkable is the perspective that she gained in the aftermath.

My situation was nowhere near this traumatic. But, I can definitely relate to the paradigm shifting attitude adjustment that comes along with something like this. In the last couple days, I can't count the number of times that I have said "I'm really ready to get back to life as usual." But honestly, I don't want to return to life a usual. I got a glimpse of how fragile life can be and I realize that there's no time for life as usual.

At the end of the video, Dr. Taylor talks about how in every moment you can choose the person that you want to be. This statement really resonated with me. I am going to start making some different choices. How about you? Let my wake up call be your wake up call.

The Best Worst Day Ever

On Thursday morning, I had a stroke.

As I was taking a shower, my right arm and the right side of my face became numb.

Then, I couldn't remember my husband's name.

Then, I couldn't remember my daughter's name.

Then, I couldn't remember my name.

Something was very wrong.

I got out of the shower and woke my husband up. When I tried to tell him that my body was numb and I was having trouble remembering things, I couldn't talk. I tried to say the words, but only jumbled sounds came out.

I grabbed a pen and scribbled this.

On a good day, my spelling isn't great, but this was worse than usual.

Still no words. I started to cry.

Rob jumped up and called 911.

An ambulance took me to the ER at Vanderbilt Medical Center. It was the right place to go.

Shortly after I got to the hospital, the numbness was gone and I could talk again.

When you come into the ER with symptoms like mine, there's no messing around. Right away, I saw teams of neurologists and cardiologists who ordered a multitude of tests.

I'm a good test taker. I passed all of them except for two.

I had an MRI of my brain. They took lots of cool pictures like this one. You wish you had a picture of your brain, don't you? It's ok to be jealous.

The MRI showed that a blood clot cut off the blood supply to part of the left side of my brain. The white spot indicates where the damage occurred.

The good news is that it's small. The other good news is that my brain was able to "re-wire" itself to bypass the dead tissue. Within about two hours after the initial incident, the numbness disappeared and I could talk. I don't have any residual effects (although I'm probably going to blame all future spelling mistakes on the dead brain tissue).

This is nothing short of a miracle. 

At this point, my doctors are stumped as to what caused the blood clot in the first place. It's exceptionally rare for someone my age to have a stroke. I'm as healthy as they come. I exercise regularly. I eat all the right food (Hello? I put flax seed on my oatmeal for goodness sake!). I don't smoke. I hardly ever drink. The only thing that might have caused it is the fact that I take birth control pills. In a very small percentage of people, birth control pills can cause blood clots (but you usually have to be a smoker for that to happen). For all intents and purposes, this thing just came out of the blue. 

My doctors may not know what caused the clot, but they were able to figure out how it got to my brain. 

It turns out, I have a hole in my heart. Who knew? Actually, three out of ten people who are reading this have a hole too. It's pretty common and most people never know that they have one. 

In my case, I have a hole that connects the right and left sides of my heart. They did a pretty cool test to prove that there is communication between the right and left chambers. Basically, they inject some bubbles into the right side of the heart and look to see if any bubbles end up in the left side. 

Here is a picture of my heart before they put the bubbles in. 

Then, they injected bubbles on the right side.

Then, they look to see if bubbles end up in the other side. If they do, it means the bubbles are leaking through a hole between the chambers. 

So...I have a leak. This leak allowed a blood clot to travel from the veins in my legs into the right side of my heart then into the left side of my heart and then into the arteries that carry blood to my brain. Not a good situation. 

I can have a procedure to seal up the leak. I'm not sure I want to do that, though. I would rather prevent future blood clots and just leave the hole alone. 

So for now, this is my new best friend (and I'm ditching the birth control pills. Harper keeps asking for a sister anyways...). 

I'm a down-player by nature. I like to tough things out and I certainly don't like people to worry about me. But, I'll be honest with you. This was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me.

I'm still processing all of this (and I'm still waiting to discover what my new superpower is going to be. Surely, the new wiring upstairs has allowed me to speak an obscure tribal language or reheat my coffee with my mind, right??) and I don't want to get all philosophical or anything, but I feel like I've been given the gift of perspective and I want to share it with you.

There's no time to waste. You have to be all in all the time. It's too important not to. 

Fore!

One of my favorite memories of being pregnant was the day we found out we were having a girl. I distinctly remember Rob's reaction. He was kind of hoping for a boy, so it took him a minute to process this new nugget of information.

Deep in thought, he started going through the following check list out loud: She can still play golf. She can still play tennis. She can still be a swimmer. She can still be a cyclist... He was audibly switching gears from blue to pink and reassuring himself that even though football was probably not going to be an option, she could still do many of the activities that he enjoys doing.

The ultrasound technician and I just looked at each other and smiled.

Well, I am happy to report that we are one step closer to achieving Rob's checklist. Behold what was waiting on our porch when we got home last night.

Rob has been teaching her how to putt in the living room using one of his putters. It was obviously too big for her, but she was actually pretty accurate with it. Now that she has some clubs that are a little more appropriate, watch out. We may have the next Michelle Wie on our hands!

PT Cruisers Behaving Badly

Some of you may be familiar with my theory on PT Cruisers. In a nutshell, people who drive PT Cruisers are the worst drivers on the road. If there is some sort of unnecessary congestion on the highway, chances are a PT Cruiser is involved. If someone is driving down the middle of the turning lane, more often than not they are driving a Cruiser. 

I'm a scientist, so it's only natural that I would want to collect data to document my run-ins with Cruisers. Case in point...I took this picture in my parking garage not too long ago. I actually watched this person park. It was a sight to behold. 

Last night, I caught this PTC behaving badly. Notice that the light is green, yet traffic is still stopped because the Cruiser is blocking the lane. By the way, I'm fairly certain that this is a different car than the one above. The color is just coincidental. 

You don't have to take my word on this subject. The next time you find yourself in the midst of a PTC, keep your eyes on it. I bet they do something ridiculous. And when they do, snap a picture and send it to me. I'll add it to the collection. 


Disclaimer: I realize that I am making a rather generalized claim. Furthermore, I'm not aware that any of my family, friends, or acquaintances actually drive a PT Cruiser. So if you are reading this and you do indeed drive a PT Cruiser, I'm not talking about you. Fair enough?