The End is Here

It’s finally and actually here.  The end of summer has arrived.  How did this happen??  I doesn’t seem real to me; how did another summer fly by just like that?  It was a great one, but I feel like I’m not finished yet.  I still want one more beach weekend or even just a weekend sitting at home with my family around a fire.  Those were my favorite.  I spent my summer at State College doing research and working out with the team, but many of my weekends were spent at home relaxing with my family.  It’s about a 4.5 hour drive back home to New York, but it’s completely worth it.  The last hour gets a little rough, but those first few hours are absolutely beautiful.  I didn’t fully appreciate how beautiful the Pennsylvania countryside is until I took all those long drives home.  Anyway, those weekends sitting on the back patio around a fire with my parents and sister were some of the best moments I experienced this summer.  There’s nothing more relaxing than being with the people you love most in this world in your favorite place in the world.

The week and a half spent in Martha’s Vineyard weren’t too shabby either.  In fact, I could go for another two weeks spent on the island before school starts to get all of summer out of my system before I have to get back into school mode.  The one thing that won’t change much between school mode and summer mode is soccer and my research.  While the summer is ending, my research will continue into the year as I am taking on 3 independent research credits.  My summer research commitment mostly consisted of gaining an in-depth understanding of the brain volume analysis program and how to use it.  Now, as the project is gaining more patients and doing follow up CT scans after the innovative new surgery, it will be my job throughout the fall to continue the accumulation of volume measurements from these CT scans.  With these measurements, other members of the project group will be able to determine whether the surgery was an improvement over previous methods.  Hopefully, the doctors in Uganda will begin to do their own volume calculations as well (now that Mike has traveled there to give them a tutorial in how to use our Matlab analysis program) so that we can compare our results and make sure the final volumes used are as valid as possible.

This summer was a great one as I said, but my nostalgia brought on by its end is more than compensated by my excitement for this fall semester.  With my research, the soccer, and my biomedical engineering courses I am sure it will be an extremely rewarding semester.  I am looking forward to seeing how it goes!

One Week Down

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a week of preseason; I feel as though it’s been at least a month. It’s funny how close you can get to people when you are isolated from the rest of society and forced to spend every waking hour together. However, the word forced might be unfair here; we choose to spend even our limited free time with our teammates. For example, three of my teammates and I are currently sitting together on the same couch reviewing video from some of our recent scrimmages. We had a long practice this morning, but we have gotten the afternoon off in a rare opportunity to rest our legs up for some more two-a-days. Having free time seems like such a strange concept that we don’t quite know what to do with ourselves.

To be honest, it feels as though the rest of the world doesn’t even exist during preseason. Eating, sleeping, and playing soccer are literally the only things that occupy our minds. And it’s great. I mean, who could complain about having no other responsibilities besides getting to practice on time and taking care of your body. On the one hand, taking care of your body is actually a big responsibility considering the work we put in on two-a days, but on the other hand there really isn’t any brainpower required. Most of our brainpower goes into comprehending all of the soccer knowledge thrown at us on a daily basis. We spend a lot of time watching video and analyzing how teams play in order to improve our own organization on the field. Whether it is a national team, a professional team, or another college team, our coaches can always find something for us to learn from another group of players (although it’s not always something good).

While we are spending most of our time learning right now, we do have an opportunity to apply what we’ve learned in only 4 days. This Saturday we are traveling to Georgetown to play in a scrimmage. Scrimmages are always fun to play and watch because they give us the chance to try new things that we wouldn’t always be comfortable trying. Who knows, maybe we will come up with a great new setup or free kick. After the scrimmage, our first true game is only a week from Friday. We are kicking off against West Virginia at 7:30 on August 22nd right here on our very own Jeffrey Field (which is looking beautiful by the way). We have had a rivalry going against WVU for a number of years no. For some reason we just can’t seem to stand each other when it comes to women’s soccer. Furthermore, one of our very own seniors from last year is now a WVU assistant coach. Things will definitely get interesting that night. So on that note, please come out and support us as we start our season off in just over a week!

Preseason is Here!

Preseason has begun!  And on the bright side the fitness tests are already over yay!!!  It feels pretty surreal to already be done with fitness tests; we’ve been training hardcore for them all summer, so it’s hard to fathom that we’ve already finished them.  I’m so proud of our team though, because all of that hard work truly paid off.  We did better as a group on the fitness tests than we have out of all three of the years I’ve been here.  That’s a pretty big deal too considering the fact that we have so many incoming freshmen.  It’s much more difficult to come into fitness testing prepared when you haven’t had the chance to train with the team or the strength coach yet, but they absolutely crushed it.  I can’t wait to see what else our freshmen bring to the table.

Now that preseason has begun, two-a-days are taking over my life and my bed has become my new best friend.  Between training sessions my body feels as though it has stopped functioning all together.  A vertical position seems too much to ask for, horizontal running however seems much more bearable (pitch perfect anyone?).  The days are grueling, but we have such a good time getting to know each other and playing together that they go by surprisingly fast.  And while our bodies are being decimated, we have resources available to us that make it a lot easier to get through sessions.  For instance, we ice bath like there is no tomorrow, spend hours in the training room with our athletic trainer, and participate in activities such as yoga (which is never as easy as I think it will be).

We also get to participate in fun activities together, however.  Team bonding usually includes a trip to a local park with a lakefront beach, we spend time watching soccer at higher levels together, and we spend lotssssss of time eating together.  We burn countless calories each day so we basically spend our free time stuffing our faces.  Preseason is the one time of the year where it is acceptable and even encouraged to eat until you can’t anymore.  Hydrating is also key.  We sweat under the sun morning and in the afternoon heat so we pretty much need an IV to stay hydrated.  Unfortunately we don’t have those available to us so we need to be drinking a constant stream of Gatorade and water.

Preseason is how you take it.  It can be the hardest few weeks of the year, and also the most enjoyable.  Like usual, I’m loving it, but of course it’s only day 2.  I can’t wait to see how the rest of preseason goes and how we start to develop as a team!

Back at it in the Lab

It’s time to get back to real life now. Vacation was amazing, and the wedding I attended this last week was fun but now I need to buckle down and get to work. With preseason coming up and school looming in the future, I’m feeling the pressure to be very productive in the lab. Right now I’m in the process of getting authorized by REDCap so I can gain access to the database for our study and act as a principal investigator. My next task is to get a grip on what my fellow undergraduate researcher accomplished while I was away. He spent time looking at how local and global thresholding techniques affect the clarity and definition of CT image segmentation differently so that we can most affectively analyze the tissue and fluid volumes. So far he’s realizing that the differences might not actually be that great, which is awesome because then we won’t have to go back and change the original code. Unfortunately, my supervisor is traveling so I can’t check in with him to catch up on where he wants me to be on the project, but at least things will start moving along a little bit more efficiently once I get his sign off on the REDCap administration paper work.

While I was hoping to get in some time this summer shadowing more types of doctors and taking advantage of Paddy’s connections at Hershey Medical Center, I’m hoping that at some point next semester I’ll be able to take advantage of similar opportunities. For now, I’m going to settle for watching Paddy dissect some mouse brains in order to implant miniscule electrodes. Which is actually pretty awesome. I met the researcher who is making the electrodes, and it is extremely impressive what he can do with some wires and coils. He makes the electrodes from scratch because buying them is extremely expensive. Furthermore, he makes them unique by designing the electrodes in special shapes with metals like gold in order to increase the surface area and conductivity. I can’t imagine working on something so tiny yet so critical to the research project all day long. Even more exciting is the fact that Paddy can implant such teeny tiny devices into an already teeny tiny animal organ without harming the creature. I’m looking forward to seeing how such a process works! While it feels as though the summer is coming to an end, I still have plenty of time left to make the most of my lab research, and hopefully figure out how to carry it out into the fall semester.

The Vacation Comes to an End

Time really does fly when you’re having fun.  I have no idea where the past week and a half went; I feel as though I had just walked through the front door of our rental on Martha’s Vineyard.  Unfortunately, the reality is that I just had to walk out of that front door into a car packed full of our belongings, ready to start the journey home.  That being said, it was a heavenly week and a half spent on the edge of the perfect beach town, Edgartown.  This was my family’s sixth year spending our vacation on the island off the coast of Cape Cod, but it never gets old.  We even found new places to explore and started new traditions this year.

Hats off to my dad, who somehow managed to get up at 3 am most mornings to go catch huge striped bass that we would grill for delicious dinners outside on the picnic table.  And hats off to my mom as well for getting out of bed to go on ten mile runs with me along the shore that inevitably ended with me soaking my aching legs in perfectly frigid ocean waters.  Somehow, we managed not to sleep in past 8 am at all on this vacation, which seems pretty strange for a vacation looking back.  However, it was always so nice getting up early and drinking a cup of coffee in the window seat or on the front porch as the island started to come alive.  And of course you had to get out of the house pretty early if you wanted to beat the beach crowds rushing to get a parking spot at the best beaches before they got too crowded.  Personally, my favorite beach this summer was South Beach.  While it was actually rainy and cloudy a lot of the time that we were on the island, we managed to make it out to South Beach on a perfect day.  The wind wasn’t too wild, and the sun was just the perfect degree of scorching.  The waves were perfect as well; big swells rode in from the horizon and crashed just before the shoreline, carrying you up and down in a soothing rhythmic motion. We spent hours in the water that day.

On the rainy days, we spent out time wandering around the local beach towns.  We had never spent much time in Vineyard Haven before, but we found it to be pretty quaint and welcoming.  We ate at this little café that made amazing crepes and coffee.  We also explored Oak Bluffs (where we went on an awesome fishing trip), and Edgartown as well.  Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about the paddleboarding! We had never been paddleboarding before, so we rented two boards and spent a bunch of time in sleepy little bays and coves paddling our way around.  It was much more of an upper body workout than I expected, but it was blissfully peaceful and relaxing at the same time.  Apparently, paddleboard yoga is a big thing on the island, but I could never quite work up the courage or balance to give it a try.  I feel like I am definitely leaving things out, but we did so much in the past week and half that it’s hard to keep track of it all.  Overall, it was the perfect summer getaway and I’m feeling melancholy about entering the real world again.  There’s something about Martha’s Vineyard that makes you forget about real life.  If you ever have the chance to visit, I highly recommend it!  I’ll certainly be going back as soon as I get the chance.

 

REDCap & More

You know that AHA I FINALLY GET IT!! moment?  Yea I finally had that moment in the lab.  I’ve been going through the code for a while now obviously, but I keep getting stuck up on little details that aren’t even integral to the functioning of the program.  Luckily, Mike (the grad student who is God when it comes to this code) sat down with me yesterday and gave me some pointers.  We were going over the difference between two very similar parts of the code that differ in one critical way, and it finally hit me.  It was such a simple concept, but I wasn’t looking at it the right way and now I feel a little silly for being so dense about it to be honest.  I’m hoping that now I’ll be able to get past the unimportant details and get straight to the crucial lines of code.

The scary thing is that Mike is leaving for Uganda and I’ll be on vacation for a while so I’m pretty much on my own from now on.  I’ve been looking at the code for a decent amount of time, but now that it’s hitting me that I’ll truly be left to my own devices I’m starting to get a little nervous.  My goal is to make some improvements on the code, which will require more statistical knowledge than I currently have.  Mike has given me some tips on which parts of the code would be best to work on, but I’m going to have to do a lot more research to figure out where to go with the improvements I want to make.  Thresholds, histograms, and segmentation are going to be taking up a lot of my time.

On another note, I am being added to the project under REDCap requirements so that I can transfer data and look at new CT images from the study!  REDCap stands for research electronic data capture and basically gives researchers the authority to take the personal data recorded in a study, desensitize it by removing any private information, and apply it to a study.  Now, since Mike is leaving I’ll be the one to receive new CT images from Uganda, upload them to the proper format, and analyze them using the improved code.  Hopefully, by that time the researchers in Uganda will have been taught how to use the program so that I can compare my results with theirs in order to provide even more backing for the validity of this study.  I’m looking forward to getting the chance to actually apply the code and help the study move forward so that the prevalence of hydrocephalus in Uganda finally has a solution!

Finally, Time for Martha’s Vineyard

So I’m going to switch gears a little bit with this blog seeing as I am beginning my vacation this weekend! All said and done, it has been a pretty strenuous summer for me. Getting up before 6 am for brutal workouts with the soccer team, hours spent in the lab trying to decode a complex program, and even more hours spent trying to complete two online summer courses (which I finished yay!!!!!) have taken their toll on me. I am officially burnt out. Case in point: I got home at 7 yesterday, took a two hour nap, and then went to bed at 10. Crazy summer nights during arts fest am I right? Or not so much…

But back to the point of this post; I’ve made it to my summer vacation! After all the hard work I’ve put in this summer, it feels awesome to be able to take a couple weeks to get back to myself and relax. I plan on reading multiple mindless books about nothing of importance, watching more Grey’s Anatomy than is healthy, and getting very very sunburnt (although my stomach is still peeling off from last weekend so I might want to be careful with that last one). The days of being albino will be over for me! Well, I hope so at least. Sure, I’m still going to work out on vacation and hopefully spend some time with materials from the lab and catch up on current events, but that all seems so much more appealing when a beach is a mile down the road. Sand workouts seem much more bearable when they are proceeded by a quick dip in the ocean as compared to an ice bath.

Oh, I haven’t even told you where I’m going! Have you heard of Martha’s Vineyard? If not, it is an island off the coast of Cape Cod, which is on the shore of Massachusetts. When I was younger, we spent a week at Cape Cod every summer, but eventually we upgraded to Martha’s Vineyard. Unfortunately, we haven’t been there in a couple years, which is why I can’t wait for this vacation. In my eyes, Martha’s Vineyard is the perfect summer spot. Edgartown is where we stay, and it is the most perfect summer town in the world in my humble opinion. It could be a little less touristy, but some of the touristy aspects are actually pretty great. For instance, I used to hate when my dad would go into art galleries when I was younger, but now I’ve developed quite an appreciation for the abundance of art in Edgartown. Also, the cuisine that caters to tourists is to die for. I don’t normally like seafood, but I love scallops at this one little restaurant right on the water and I might even try some lobster this year; I’m feeling adventurous. I can’t wait to get to Martha’s Vineyard, but I’ve been procrastinating packing by writing this blog so I better get back to that (I despise packingL). I’ll be posting again soon!

Coding Conundrums

While my research this summer has already proven to be incredibly rewarding and interesting, it is not the easiest project I have ever taken on. The main cause of difficulty facing me when it comes to my research is the lack of set deadlines and requirements.   Basically, I have to push myself everyday to not only be productive, but to find something to do in a productive manner. Not only do I have to learn how to use the program, but I also have to learn how the computer code works. And let me tell you, that is no easy task. The best comparison I can think of is learning to read a novel in a foreign language with only a basic understanding of the vocabulary and a language dictionary at your disposal.

Luckily, the grad student who developed the code (Mike) is still around. Unfortunately, though, he will be leaving for Uganda in a week to teach the technicians at the clinic where the study is being conducted how to use the volume analysis program. Then, I will only have half a week with Mike before he leaves Penn State to begin his new job in the real world. On the bright side, I don’t have to think about the “real world” for quite some time now, which I gladly rub in his face. But while Mike is beginning his new life in the “real world,” I’ll be trying to read this novel in a foreign language without the writer who wrote it. That’s just a little daunting, and I’m starting to feel the pressure to master the code as quickly as possible so I can effectively continue this research into the fall as part of my honors thesis.

The tricky part is figuring out where to start because the code has so many different components that combine to make the overall GUI or graphical user interface. I have never had to take a statistics course at Penn State, which I had always considered a blessing. Now, however, I’m starting to regret that due to the complex statistical analysis methods utilized within this code. I’m thinking that I’m going to have to spend some time reading up on those methods so that I stand a chance of further improving the code once Mike is gone. He’s already chipped in some ideas for future improvements, but right now I feel as if the implementation of such coding improvements are just a tad bit over my head. However, it’s an exciting concept being able to make tangible contributions to this study and therefore I am very motivated to push myself to get a good grasp on this code and program before the fall semester begins!

Oh…I Guess I Do Need That Class

Remember being in that class with way too much detailed information that you were convinced you would forget right after the final and never use again in your life? Well I knew that all the information drilled into my brain during my initial bioengineering class last semester would be relevant to the rest of my life, but I wasn’t sure when I would first see it outside the classroom and whether I would actually remember it. To my relief and excitement, I actually easily recalled some of the details from that complex course in my laboratory today.

Paddy, a recurring character in these blogs, had been explaining his research to me a week or so ago. Today, he showed me videos of the mice involved in his research and the EEG recordings as they experienced epileptic seizures. It was a humorous but slightly alarming sight to be honest. The mice would start to tremble and then their tails would shoot straight into the air as they lost all control of their movement. That phenomenon started off humorous but began to become troubling to watch as you realized the lack of control they had over their own bodies. The humor returned however as the mice awoke from their post-seizure collapses and seemed to be utterly befuddled about what had just occurred. But let me explain why the mice are relevant to this blog post.

The study of the mice analyzes how certain diseases are related to epilepsy, and how these mechanisms are explained by biological processes that we discussed in my bioengineering course last semester. It was gratifying to hear Paddy mention principles of biologic function that I could easily recall and comprehend. Knowing these principles made it easy to understand the connection between certain diseases and epilepsy. I had no idea that these relationships between diseases and epilepsy even existed, so it was exciting for me to be able to actually comprehend how those relationships developed. It always amazes me that these diseases and medical ailments our society takes for granted, as in we can easily recognize occurrences such as epileptic attacks but don’t take the time to fully understand them on a daily basis, have such logical yet in-depth explanations. It may just be my developing obsession with medicine talking, but the human body is so complex that sometimes I wonder how we even function. It is refreshing to realize that I truly do have a passion for the major I have chosen, however, and I can’t wait to see where it continues to take me in the future.

Field Trip to Hershey

In my last blog post, I talked about my impending trip to Hershey to shadow a radiologist specializing in neuroanatomy.  Well, that trip was today and it was awesome.  I felt like a goofy little nerd but I couldn’t stop smiling the entire day.  The idea of being a doctor gets me all excited, so actually getting to follow one around for the day put me through the roof.  Dr. Thamburaj, the radiologist nice enough to let my research project partner and I follow him around like lost puppies all day was incredible.  He made his job seem like the easiest thing in the world, when in reality it requires a medical school degree and a six-year residency program (only one year shorter than the residency programs required for neurosurgeons).  Basically, this guy made knowing the entire anatomy of the brain and spine in detail look like a cakewalk.  Talk about impressive.

The day began at 4:45 am.  That seems so wrong, but yes I woke up at 4:45 to do my soccer workout before catching the 6:55 shuttle to Hershey.  My calves are seriously regretting that decision.  However, it felt great to start the day off on the right foot and I was able to catch the shuttle no problem.  The best part about the shuttle is that it provides the 2-hour trip to Hershey for free if you gain a pass through your respective program.  After the shuttle, we were shown through a maze of hallways to the underground radiologist reading room.  It was dim to keep the glare on the monitors to a minimum, and took a little adjusting to.  In my mind, I nicknamed it the dungeon.  In real life, it was actually pretty cool.  Three or four monitors took up the desk space in each cubicle, and the images they showed were impressive.  Incredibly detailed MRI and CT images were displayed everywhere you looked.  The coolest part came when Dr. Thamburaj showed us the imaging software that could convert MRI images to 3D interpretations.  I never ever ever want to see the computer code required to do that after seeing how complex the code is for our research project’s relatively simple graphical user interface software.

After getting the initial tour, Dr. Thamburaj let us watch as he dictated his analysis of cases into patient records.  It was pretty humbling to think that he could look at an MRI image and determine whether a patient was cancer free or developing a reoccurring tumor.  My favorite part of this process came when the reading room got a phone call to check a skull image for a missing needle.  Apparently, when a patient leaves the Operating Room, all the instruments used are counted, and if one is missing the radiologists are called to look for the missing instrument inside the patient.  Luckily, it was determined that the patient would not be finding a needle in his/her jaw anytime soon.  Overall, I had an amazing day getting to see how a doctor works on a daily basis.  I had never before even considered becoming a radiologist, but now I’m a little interested.  Their capabilities help them save human lives even if they never come into contact with a patient.  I have a newfound respect for radiologists, and hope to repeat the shadowing experience very soon!