Wilting Wednesday

Wednesdays are rough. I'm right smack in the middle of the week, and whatever motivation I may have mustered after my weekend of rest is clearly wilting. It doesn't help that I have ICM on Thursdays, which I spend my Wednesday evenings dreading. ICM should make me happy - I usually get to see a patient and learn clinically-relevant things. But it also means that I have to be at school in the afternoon, which I don't like. And luck usually has it that Thursday is NOT a day I'd otherwise have to go to school (not always, but it seems like more often than not I don't have any reason to be there for the course I'm in). Ah whatever. Just me bitching over piddly things. At least I can sleep in a little tomorrow.

In other more exciting news, I got a summer research internship at the Johns Hopkins Cystic Fibrosis Research Center! I'm pretty thrilled! It's not going to pay nearly as much as NIH would, but I'm much more excited about the work itself, and my commute will be about 15-20 minutes - even shorter than my commute to school! It pays enough for us to get by, which is really all I need to be concerned with.

Anyway, I've expressed interest in a project related to the specific genetic mutation that my niece Lacy has - deltaF508 - which causes her CF. It's the most common CF mutation (hence the research focus), and it results in the production of a protein that doesn't get processed normally by the cell and doesn't function well. This protein would normally form a channel in the cell membrane that allows salts to flow through. But the mutant form of this protein (that Lacy has) gets hung up in processing and never makes it to the cell membrane to do its job, and the lack of this one channel results in Cystic Fibrosis. HOWEVER, research has shown that if we could get this protein out of the processing jam and get it to the membrane, it would function well enough (though still not at 100%) to significantly improve function in the tissues where it's needed, and possibly eliminate CF symptoms altogether in patients who are more mildly affected to begin with. The lab that I'm working in this summer is working on this problem, and it's the project that I'm most interested in helping out with. My boss expressed that I could work on whatever interests me, so I'm hoping to get assigned to this project :] It would feel pretty good to walk away from this summer job feeling like I've made some contribution that could directly affect Lace one day. And not just in a round-about way, but in a very real way - this is the mutation that she suffers from (along with the other 80-some percent of kids with CF), so a new therapy for solving this particular problem is something she could directly benefit from. CF is actually THE most common inherited disease in the US - that's a lot of kids (and a lot of future kids - 1 in 31 of us are carriers).

Switching gears, we went to Florida this past weekend and had a GREAT time escaping the snow for some 70-degree weather! It did rain most of the time, but when we landed in Orlando and the guys out on the tarmack were wearing shorts (the guys on the tarmack at BWI were in beanies and winter coats!), we were pretty thrilled ;] It was only 75 and sunny on Friday - Saturday and Sunday were mid-60's and rainy. Still really warm though! It was wonderful to finally get to visit with my grandparents a bit - my granddad is an absolute riot - and the wedding was beautiful :] Despite the rain, of course. I suppose I'm bad luck at weddings... Anyway, of course we didn't get to spend much time with my childhood best friend (the bride) since she was otherwise occupied, but they had great music and good food and an open bar, so we had ourselves a lovely little evening, and we did get to talk to her a bit - she definitely made a little extra effort to stop by a few times since we rarely get to see each other. Such a sweetie :] Where are the pictures, you might ask? Good question. My camera made it all the way to Florida, just not to the wedding. FAIL. I was so pissed. But we made sure that her photographer got a few shots of her and I together, so there is SOME record of this alleged "trip to Florida".

We have a busy weekend ahead that is likely to be snowed-out, which wouldn't be a huge crisis since I do have an exam on Monday and I really should STUDY if I'm trying to stick to this "turning over a new leaf" thing with this new class. It's only on a week and a half of material, and I've been keeping up better this past week, so hopefully the studying won't be too overwhelming. Anyway, we're supposed to go to dinner on Friday for my mom's birthday, bring my step-sister home with us for a sleepover, go to my step-dad's holiday family gathering (in Edgewater... NOT CLOSE AT ALL), drop my step-sister off with them and hang out for a bit, host Ben's work friends and their wives for the UFC fight Saturday night (til 1am), go to church (I also have a nursery training while we're there), and then head to Janelle's downtown for a Superbowl Party!!! So if it dumps on us Friday night thru Saturday, missing out on having Shaylin here and going to this family thing would really free up some much-needed study time! Ugh how do I get so over-booked? Probably because I don't pay attention. Grr.

For now I gotta go get ready to head out for dinner - we're meeting my Dad and his girlfriend and my Grammy at Carabba's in Hunt Valley for dinner :] Of course my husband still isn't home, and we're leaving in 45 minutes. Wish me luck!