Wanderlust

I get cabin fever. Sometimes I need to get out. Out of the house, out of the city, out of the state, out of this time zone....

Maybe I just need to get out of my head.

Pacemaking

The other day in anatomy lab we were dissecting the neck. Our cadaver has a really short and thick neck so it's hard to tell where neck ends and chest begins. I guess we went a little too far because before we knew it, we were in the chest. We were cutting away when one of us found a wire... a pacemaker! Obviously I got excited and started trying to uncover it. I just wanted to see if it was a Medtronic device. :)

As I was cutting away, this surreal feeling washed over me. I started thinking, ever since undergrad, I thought I wanted to work on medical devices - blending math, physics, and medicine. I thought I'd be close enough to the medical field to stay interested. Then I started getting a taste of the bioengineering industry. Sure, the devices were interesting... but I just wanted to know how doctors used them. After 5 years of avoiding the issue, it finally sunk in. I wasn't meant to be an engineer. I didn't want to be "close" to the medical field, I wanted to be IN it. 

So I finally got it out of his chest. It was a St. Jude device. And I just stood there for a second, staring at the scalpel in my hand. My two worlds colliding. It reminded me how much my life has changed in the past year - how incredibly blessed I am. And I'm so happy to be on this side of the pacemaker.