Memories from a much to be Forgotten Past

I rarely write opinion pieces on subject unrelated to engineering matters but this week has added a burden on my mind. Recently, through conversations with lost friends, coupled with my experience seeing patients and the fragility of the human body, I came to reflect on the meaning of the research work I am hoping to conduct to fruition and/or completion: design better, potent/effective vaccines for infectious diseases whether viral or bacterial. In fact, not so long ago, a thirteen years old version of myself was dreaming of being the first scientist to ever synthesize a "fountain of life" potion, enabling human beings to live several times than their normal life expectancy while outliving any disease. I am now unable to recall where this dream stemmed from. 

However, what I can clearly recall is coming face to face with death or multiple occasions; more times than any twelve or thirteen years old child. In contrary to what many may believe or what Hollywood movies have depicted, when one runs for his life in the middle of an armed conflict, stepping over lying dead bodies, or hiding in the middle of some to fake being dead in fear of being shot at point blank range, the body and mind go into autopilot intended on survival no matter what. Food and water become secondary, thoughts about how one has lived, how one will live are the furthest things, what one's regrets are, people in our life which we wish to see once again, are the furthest from one's mind. Keeping your breathing slow, your eyes moving, sharpening your ears to react to the slightest gun shot, these thoughts are the ones continuously playing on a seemingly infinite loop in your mind. 

After the war, death came in many more ways than gun shots, bomb blasts or slow tortures. Infectious diseases in temporary refugee camps seemed to me the worst harbingers of death. They came slowly creeping in, weakening their hosts, eating at them from the inside, bringing a slow and painful death to the unlucky ones which realized their fate too late to be helped by the under-qualified attending physicians. While running away from bullets and strangely cruel soldiers seemed hell, it was a strangely appeasing hell compared to the one in which running away was far from being an option if you were infected. Food, water, or clothing, nothing was safe. Invisible enemies were in fact the worst kind.

This experience made me see death and infectious diseases as enemies, ones whose absolute defeat would bring me the revenge I sought. Working in a hospital rekindled these feelings. In fact, while my nightmares may have resurfaced, they have strangely fortified my heart for the work I ought to do, one which seems rather ludicrous but one which against all odds, I will dedicate my life to: bring an end to death by infectious diseases.