Scientific interest

Random memory time!

I believe my true interest in science was sparked by an incident when I was maybe 5 or 6 years old.

I was in the kitchen/dining room area with my mom and sister, who was about 2. We had this spiffy division between the kitchen and dining room with stools on the one side, where my sister and I were sitting as my mom was doing something with wrapping food and putting it away.

As a curious toddler, my sister picked up the saran wrap thingy in her clumsy hands – and if you’re old enough, you remember the super sharp, giant teeth that the little cutting thing on those packages had! Anyway, instinctively, my mom grabbed it away from my sister, and sliced her finger open in the process. My dad was at work, so she went to the hospital with us in tow.

At first, I was bored, but when the nurse came in, she cleaned the area with iodine and such, and said the doctor would be in shortly. I hated the sight of my own blood (it would take several grown men to hold me down for a blood draw at 4 years old!), but I found the sight of my mother’s blood fascinating because she was so calm. I didn’t understand how she could just sit there, not screaming and crying. When the doctor came in, I asked if I could watch, and he said yes. He examined my mother’s finger, and showed me the blood vessel running alongside the bone in her finger, and explained she was very lucky the blade didn’t nick that blood vessel. He then stitched her up, and I couldn’t gawk at her internal anatomy anymore, but I was hooked nonetheless. I remember just staring at my hands later that day, wondering how I never knew that there was this whole other world inside me!

That was the moment that science took hold of my mind and made me crave any and all information I could find.