One Armed Bandit

My shoulder is f***ing killing me. Ok, it's always been killing me, but I'm just tired of always having one arm that simply doesn't work. I can't even hold my purse with that arm! I am so frustrated because with my eyes I see that I have two arms, but in reality only one of them is useful. I am sick of it! Exercise helps but not enough. I guess it's time for a ton of steroids. Sigh.

My legs are fine. My hands and feet are fine. My rheumy says that it isn't symmetric so they aren't concerned. F** them. I am at 75% capacity. I am concerned!

Too Much Cancer

Many of you may remember that my sister, Dr. Mom, successfully battled breast cancer two years ago. It was strange that two of her labmates also battled cancer. Imagine - three people in their 30's, all former labmates, coming down with cancer at nearly the same time. Doesn't this stink of environmental cues?

And then, within the course of a week, I found out that my own labmate has cancer as does my classmate. My labmate and I worked in the same room, around the same chemicals and what not. My classmate worked on the same floor. It just makes me wonder if we really know and understand the risks of the materials we are working with. I also question if my RA arose from environmental stimuli. It is an autoimmune disease, after all. I suppose I will never know.

It is awful that young people - brilliant scientists - have to suffer through cancer. I hope that they will recover like my sister did. I hope that they can continue their careers and their lives, and live it to the fullest.

Adjudication: Rejected and Accepted

The result from the adjudication was that the manuscript was rejected. But on the bright side, the editor recommended automatic acceptance in a lower-ranked (but still nice IF) journal. So I was rejected and accepted and everyone is happy.