2.28.2011

Wonder and other things

I had these moments during first year where I’d be walking down the street in my city thinking about nerves (I’m a med student, ok? I nerd out more than the average person).  Then I’d think about the person I was dating, or my friends, or something else fun and realize that everything we are and feel and do is simply due to ion concentrations and electricity and chemical gradients, receptors, genes, proteins, pathways… and then I’d have a little mind explosion, “OMG that is SO AMAZING!” How beautiful and poetic is it that love equals ion gradients in my brain!  I wasn’t simplifying love or anything else, but I would appreciate the very small in the very complex.

I don’t really have those moments anymore. Or I haven’t for a while. My brain has been too busy with class, studying, othermedschoolnecessities, bills, errands, relationships, eating, fillingbasicneeds and passingexams.

Except, recently, I did have a moment like that – about blood. Holycrap, it works! Your blood carries necessary molecules to your tissues and remains fluid in your arteries and veins. You don’t bleed all over when you get a cut* and your blood doesn’t become a solid mass and cause you to become blue and dead**. That’s amazing! Of course, there are plenty of things that can go wrong and I get to learn all about that fun stuff, but for the most part – it works! It has worked as long as we’ve+ had circulatory systems.  Holywow.

Ok, nerdoutexcitement over. Back to the library. 

*Unless you have a bleeding disorder
**Unless you have a coagulopathy
+We as in our evolutionary ancestors

1 comment:

  1. If matter cannot be created or destroyed (sort of), then we have eternal life! At least all of the things that make us up have always been here and will continue to be here when we're gone. And, yes, hemoglobin is awesome!

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