Is this thing on?

Helloooooooo? Is anyone still out there? The past couple of months have been crazy, at best. This particular bout of crazy began with a nice little punch of science fail. It wasn’t a complete disaster, but I had to completely change my strategy on a project that I thought was about to seriously take off. Still haven’t made it to taking off just yet, but I have gotten some interesting preliminary data.

That same week, Little Bear, my grandmother and my father in law all told me that I needed to convince my mom to go to the doctor for this lingering and horrible cold that she had. We finally talked her into it, and two days later she was diagnosed with lung cancer. A week later we started her first found of chemo. All told, it was caught really early, she’s tolerated chemo extremely well (although the side effects of radiation were a bit rough), and we’ll know on Monday whether or not she’s in remission.

Because of her chemo regimen, I was taking off at least 3 weekdays plus a whole weekend from lab to travel back and forth every third week. I must say that although it hasn’t been easy, it’s given me some motivation and I’ve been having a bit of an easier time getting things done. Did I mention that the week of the fourth round of chemo I gave my yearly talk for my program and had a committee meeting?

My committee meeting went well. They were pleased with my progress and excited about my preliminary data from FailProject. We’re going to meet again in January. I kind of threw Crazy Man under the bus for not being around and not talking to me practically at all before my talk. I want to feel bad about it, but on the other hand, he could have handled it better. But he seems to be really making an effort now, so I appreciate that. In other news, the Golden Child defended and is outta here, a new postdoc has started and I once again have my very own rotation student, who is seriously phenomenal.

Whew! How’s that for a quick and dirty update?