Week 3 - Food is Good

"I'm on a low-fat diet" - a stereotypical summer gripe heard before beach season heard far and wide ranging from being on line for Starbucks or in a gym locker room. Still, it unexpectedly caught my attention at the hospital when it was innocently stated by a 6 year old boy. 

This boy suffered from T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). He was waiting for his monthly lumbar puncture for another dose of intrathecal chemotherapy to ensure the T-ALL does not spread to his cerebrospinal fluid. A hospital worker was walking around with cupcakes and quickly found herself lured in by his infectious smile and laugh. Unfortunately, as a patient receiving chemotherapy and suffering from neutropenia, his diet is extremely limited until his immune system bounces back. Still, as with most of the patients that I ran across, he just smiled and politely declined.

He was one of the many patients I was able to interact with when shadowing Dr. Lisa Roth, a hematology oncologist, in both her adult and pediatric clinics. I honestly felt a little ashamed at my lack of knowledge of the simple standard practice of administering chemotherapy through PICC lines and ports, the common age of Hodgkin Lymphoma patients, and so many other significant tidbits that I probably should have known as a lymphoma researcher. Therefore, my naïveté led me to become shocked to see that most adults were around my age to early 30s. Just like the boy, they too were worried about their diet and when they could have “General Tsao’s chicken” again. They also treated chemotherapy and lymphoma as just another hurdle to get over, almost an inconvenience to their routine and life plans. The entire experience was eye-opening and very humbling. 

Outside of the lymphoma program, I also was able to connect with Dr. Ng in radiation oncology and am excited to begin shadowing there next week. I’m hopeful that these clinical experiments will help me understand the full process of care for lymphoma patients.

In the lab, I was able to do my first organoid run! As with any synthesis day, the day is long and painful, but with four cell lines, this run was especially challenging. Fortunately, the results look promising, and I’m excited to see what information I can derive from the final results.