starting anew

Recently packed up and moved to a new city -- left all my friends in Dakar and stepped into a new adventure in Thiès. I'm interning with MissionInter Senegal and have already spent a whole week here which is hard to believe.

Caution: If you don't like gross details you may want to skip this section.  I'm working in the lab -- with blood, urine and stool samples. I've learned how to do blood typing, test for malaria and salmonella, pregnancy, glucose, parasites, sickle cell and more. I'm a total nerd in the lab -- got really excited on thursday doing a test for sickle cell anemia because I could finally distinguish between red blood cells on their side versus sickle cells. What's most incredible to me is that what I'm working on comes from real patients -- these results go to doctors who will make decisions for treatment based on what I did.

While I love what I'm doing and am so excited to be putting some of my science skills to use I don't think I'd ever be happy working in a lab like this long term. I'm constantly asking myself or bothering the lab tech I work with what implications the results have, what the treatment will be. I'm feeling more and more convicted to become a doctor -- a decision I've been cautious about making.

On my day off I joined the surgical team to watch a C-section and hernia incision. Gotta say that I preferred the C-section -- so amazing to see a baby come into the world. I managed to help in a few minor ways -- I handed the PA some betadine and helped grab this giant band-aid to cover the sutures. Big stuff I know. Even cooler was helping to breath for the patient while the anesthesiologist was turning on the machine that breathes automatically. I'll be an expert in no time.

Plenty more to share but its bedtime. I plan on using my last half of the weekend to catch up on sleep, go to a new church (conveniently across the street), take down some notes from the week and try to finish a good book I just started.