Like Week 3, the first couple days of Week 4 were rather slow. Monday and Tuesday were mostly filled with more Microsoft Excel data analysis. On Monday, my PI had a patient that he needed to scan using ultrasound. This was interesting for me since I got to watch him scan a live person instead of the usual dead eye. Furthermore, because the patient was Spanish-speaking, and spoke little to no English at all, I got to practice some of my hard-learned Spanish-speaking skills that I have been honing for the past year (shoutouts to Senora Morales). The patient was very nervous about going through with this procedure. She was quite afraid that it would hurt. I calmed her down and translated for Dr. Silverman using the most authentic-sounding accent possible. Eventually, we got through the scanning procedure and all was well with the world.
On Wednesday, I went with someone from a different lab to go and pick up rabbit heads so that I could work with the freshest possible rabbit corneas. Once we got there, the person from the other lab taught me how to inspect the rabbit to ensure that the eyes were in the best possible condition. We made sure there were no infections or cloudiness in both eyes. Once we chose which rabbits we wanted, the butcher took the rabbits to the back and quickly and humanely decapitated the rabbits so that they'd be easier to work with. This, unfortunately, is unavoidable since getting an entire, live rabbit to sit still and fitting the entire body into the very small region where the head of a human being is supposed to go would be impossible.
After I returned from the butcher's, I first began by soaking the corneas in an alcoholic solution. This was done in order to facilitate the removal of the epithelium, the outermost layer of the cornea. The drops of riboflavin would not be absorbed by the cornea otherwise. After the epithelium was removed, we took scans of the rabbit cornea using the OCT slit scan machine and an ultrasound pachymetry machine. Ultimately, two scans per method per eye ended up being taken. Next, we began the previously described (Week 3 entry) cross-linking procedure. To maximize efficiency, we cross-linked both eyes before scanning either of them for the post-op data. Therefore, the cross-linking step ended up taking a total of 2 hours, with me putting in drops every 3 minutes. Next, as you'd expect, we took the post-op scans using the same machines and the same methods.
On Thursday, I essentially did the same exact thing as the day before. The only difference was that I went to the butcher's and back on my own. This was yet another chance to practice my Spanish since the butcher's only spoke Spanish, and only one of the understood a single word of English. Thanks to Senora, I had to little to no difficulty with communication and obtaining what I needed for my experiment.
On Friday, one of the members of my lab sent me on an errand to deliver something to my PI who was all the way in downtown Manhattan. On my way back, I bought bubble tea for myself and everyone in my lab. Some loved it, and some preferred not to have it, which was okay since this is to be expected with almost all types of Asian food. What an eventful week!
After I returned from the butcher's, I first began by soaking the corneas in an alcoholic solution. This was done in order to facilitate the removal of the epithelium, the outermost layer of the cornea. The drops of riboflavin would not be absorbed by the cornea otherwise. After the epithelium was removed, we took scans of the rabbit cornea using the OCT slit scan machine and an ultrasound pachymetry machine. Ultimately, two scans per method per eye ended up being taken. Next, we began the previously described (Week 3 entry) cross-linking procedure. To maximize efficiency, we cross-linked both eyes before scanning either of them for the post-op data. Therefore, the cross-linking step ended up taking a total of 2 hours, with me putting in drops every 3 minutes. Next, as you'd expect, we took the post-op scans using the same machines and the same methods.
On Thursday, I essentially did the same exact thing as the day before. The only difference was that I went to the butcher's and back on my own. This was yet another chance to practice my Spanish since the butcher's only spoke Spanish, and only one of the understood a single word of English. Thanks to Senora, I had to little to no difficulty with communication and obtaining what I needed for my experiment.
On Friday, one of the members of my lab sent me on an errand to deliver something to my PI who was all the way in downtown Manhattan. On my way back, I bought bubble tea for myself and everyone in my lab. Some loved it, and some preferred not to have it, which was okay since this is to be expected with almost all types of Asian food. What an eventful week!
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