Ants in His Pants

For some reason, my mind still has moments where it forgets that I live in the southern hemisphere.  Today, Kate (flatmate) and I walked to campus together.  On our way, she scraped some snow off the top of a car and threw it at me.  To my dismay, there wasn't enough snow on the car for me to make a snowball to throw back in my defense (the snow covered cars parked on Cumberland St. had driven in from the outskirts of the city-we didn't get any accumulation in the northern part of Dunedin).  So, yeah, snow... in June!!!  I can't believe it!  It feels like January.

Yesterday, I measured two participants for the MInT study.  The first one was a severe burn survivor.  Poor kid was head to toe in scars; I couldn't help thinking they are so lucky to be alive.  As I wrapped the measuring tape around the participant's stomach I noticed what was once a belly button was now a small dot the size of a pin hole.  I worried for the participant because I didn't want them to feel self-conscious. I made sure to keep reading the participant's face just to be sure they were comfortable with me taking the measurements; it all went smoothly.

The second participant was a six year old boy who would not stand still!  Honestly, if his feet weren't moving, it was his knees.  If his knees weren't moving, it was his head. And, on top of that, he was one impatient little thing!  This was a follow-up visit and he knew where to stand to get all the measurements taken, but when I tried to explain that he couldn't just jump onto the BIA machine because it gets confused (I have to plug in numbers from his measurements so it can do it's calibration thing) he started huffing!  To his defense, he had already been to the hospital for a DXA scan and he told me he was ready to go home.  I couldn't get mad though, it was just too funny to see such a wiggly kid.

So, I can definitely say it has been interesting working at MInT.  Each family is so unique; and it's been an honor and an adventure to meet so many great people through this study.