2025- Happy Mother’s Day to the mother of most of modern science, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Yes, yes, Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, be your children human or not.

The non-fiction medical book for today is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Henrietta Lacks (and the cells that were taken from her cervical cancer) is the mother of most of modern medicine. Until her, the cells that were to be used to medical research died. But hers did not.

And have not. Still.

Her cells have been to outer space, ridden on airplanes, or in cars, and even in the breast pockets of pilots as the cells were flown to additional hospitals/laboratories.

I first read this book shortly after it had been published in February of 2010. The cover is striking, a beaming black woman, hands on hips takes up the left side of the cover. The right side is the title “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” and the subtitle of ‘Doctors took her cells without asking. Those cells never died. They launched a medical revolution and a multimillion-dollar industry. More than twenty years later, her children found out. And their lives would never be the same.’ It is a striking cover with the background being, well, cells. Yellows and pinks against a red background with Henrietta Lacks in black and white with the colors bleeding over half of her.

Frankly, one of the reasons I probably picked up the book was the cover.

This is a tale of medical misadventure in the beginning of the medical marvels of the 1950s and on. Cancer treatments were developed using her cells, medication treatments were developed using her cells, the ability to keep other so called immortal cells alive was developed using her cells.

This book is the story of Henrietta Lacks. Her life was a quiet one, albeit a hard one. She was married at twenty to the father of her 2 children. He was her cousin. They went on to have three more children, moved away from their hometown to have a better life for them and the children.

Henrietta knew that something was wrong with her insides shortly after the birth of their fifth child, Joe.

This book is also the story of the explosive growth of medical innovation after the survival of Henrietta Lack’s immortal cells. It is the story of the man who first cultured the cells, of the callous way medicine used her cells but didn’t tell her family. It is the story of her family and how they survived after she died.

I don’t want to give away too much of the story but for me this is an absolute must read.

Every time I read it I notice different things. I re-read this recently and from what I know and understand now about HIPAA and medical consent as a PhD student I was struck anew of how important the story of Henrietta Lacks’ immortal cells are.

I will continue to recommend this book to all who want to learn more and those who want to know the wrong way to go about medical research. Because this book is a warning about getting it right. Not only for the family of the woman who died but for us all.

School Me Saturday 5/10/25- Teacher Appreciation Week

It is no wonder that 2 of the most influential professions, both mostly staffed by women, have their respective appreciation week right before Mother’s Day.

I am, of course, referring to nurses. And TEACHERS.

Women vastly outnumber the men in each of the professions. Teachers are 77% female to 23% male and nurses 88% female to 12% male.

Gender really doesn’t matter in either profession.

It is the quality of instructor. Even in the higher grades.

Looking back on my 40+ years of being a student I can count on one hand the number of male teachers that I’ve had, and 2 of those in the graduate school level.

No matter how you define it women are important to these very important gateways for students/patients.

It is time to celebrate them. It is time to thank them. And not with yet another coffee cup, although the caffeine does come in handy.

If you have had a teacher you really enjoyed in school, no matter the level, take some time to think fondly on them during this week. Thank them, even if it is silently. Better yet, if it is in the form of a handwritten note or card.

Because they don’t get appreciated enough.

Especially for all they do for us and the children in their classrooms.

FFS Friday 5/9/25- FINALLY

Finally the last outstanding race in North Carolina was called for Allison Riggs. She was elected to the state Supreme Court and has been serving as such since the November 2025 election.

I’ve written about this before.

Her opponent objected mightily to being bested by a woman and a Democrat and he pitched a well-funded fit. Where did the money come from to file these appeals and court cases? No one is telling.

But we can all guess.

He wanted to change the rules of the election AFTER the election.

Remember, I warned y’all that this was a test case for future tomfoolery around elections that the Republicans don’t win. And, boy, was I right. I hate it when I am right about this kind of bullshit.

Earlier in the week a federal court decision came out in favor of Riggs. (you know, the declared winner although those sore loser wouldn’t certify the race). Judge Myers wrote that to allow the rules to be changed after the election to suit one side that to allow the uprooting lawfully cast votes could lead to undermining of public opinion. He ordered the state to certify the election. Finally.

This was Monday.

So why did it take until Wednesday for Griffin, the one who wanted to throw out lawfully case votes and the party that backed him, to concede? Again I ask there the millions of dollars to fund this came from?

No need to ask it they will try again.

They will.

But for now Allison Riggs has retained her seat on the NC Supreme Court.

But we have to wary of this bs being pulled on other races in other states.

The country will be watching.

Cookie Thursday 5/8/25- Egg replacement brownie

Last month I decided to find the best egg replacement for cookies. Chocolate chip cookies to be precise.

And I found it. The best egg replacement was the banana egg and psyllium husk egg combo. These cookies were perfection. The banana added the moistness and the psyllium husk added the binding and the moisture retention properties needed.

Well, after four solid weeks of making the same chocolate chip cookies I decided I was sick of chocolate chip cookies. I wanted a change, is that too much to ask?

This month I decided to not continue with the egg replacement in chocolate chip cookie experiment and move on to baked goods with different egg replacement.

The recipe is one I had made before “Lunch lady brownies”. I made them this last September for that month’s lunch lady theme for back to school. It is a simple recipe with 5 ingredients. I just swapped out the four eggs for 4 egg replacements. I used 2 bananas and 2 psyllium husk eggs. To give the batter a fighting chance of rising, I added 1 tsp of baking soda to help with lift.

It was very promising and the brownies rose beautifully.

The brownies took a bit longer to cook and I used the time tested method of sticking a toothpick into the baked good and removing it to check for no batter left clinging to the toothpick. I prefer this method over timing for cakes and brownies, especially when browning can’t be trusted because of the chocolate.

I took the brownies out and left them to cool for 10 minutes. I was going to mix the frosting after this time.

And then I got called in. Cool, that’s what I do. I put the brownies in a cat secured place and went to the hospital.

One case turned into 2 and it was nearly 5 hours before I could get back to frost them. By then they had shrunk down quite a bit and I shrugged, thinking that it would make for a very fudgy brownie. It did.

My husband saw me frantically frosting the brownies after I got home from the hospital because I had a full night. He remarked, casually, “I didn’t think you liked making brownies.”

He has a point. I resisted making brownies for CTIAT for YEARS. I also don’t like making frosting.

I frosted the now very cool brownies and placed them in the refrigerator as the recipe ordered.

This morning I cut them into 2 inch x 1 inch slices and put them in the delivery device.

I would let the department weigh in on the egg replacements.

Me, I was just happy that the frosting set.

Happy Nurses Week 2025 5/7/25

It is Nurses’ Week once again.

Funny how that happens.

This is the week that nurses and nursing are being celebrated.

If 2020 was the Year of the Nurse and Midwife that marked 200 years since Florence Nightingale’s birth, then simple math makes this 205th year. You see what I did there.

There have been other notable nurses besides Florence Nightingale. Many, many, many. The nursing theorists whose work guide us. The original nurses who worked to provide us with structure.

Clara Barton and her work on the Civil War battlefield come to mind. As does her star achievement of the American Red Cross.

Dorothea Dix was a contemporary of Clara (can I call her that?) and advocated for mental healthcare of soldiers. She also was concerned with the mentally ill poor people and helped established mental hospitals.

Margaret Sanger who worked as a nurse in the tenements of New York and founded Planned Parenthood. She was also instrumental in the birth control pill development. She, too, was probably sick of women dying in childbirth.

Mary Seacole was a Jamaican-British nurse who was a contemporary of Florence (can I call her that?). She was the first Black woman who authored and published an autobiography in England.

Lilian Wald was a nurse whose passion was for safer living conditions for the poor in New York City. She also started community nursing and was an advocate of nurses in public schools.

Harriet Tubman was a nurse whose concern was for the Black soldiers of the Civil War and the newly freed slaves. She is best known for being a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

This is not a complete list. In fact, this is a living list and being added to constantly.

Giants all of them. Today’s nurses stand on their shoulders and fight many of the same battles. Hygiene might be better. There are better medications and treatments but at the heart, nurses remain the same.

Our reason for professional being are the people who need us. Not just the patients, but the doctors and surgeons and people on the street as well.

I have been a nurse for 24 years and I wouldn’t do anything else.

After all, I have big shoes to fill. My mom, the nurse I want to be when I grow up, is still working after 52 years.

Tuesday Top of Mind 5/6/25-Missouri is trying to pull a fast one on abortion rights that they just got back

Send abortion rights back to state? That was the plan after the supreme court released the Dobbs decision, right? After all, restoring the power back to the states would make sure that your state made the right decision. Well, right in more ways than one.

Changing the state constitution or passing an amendment protecting a woman’s right to bodily autonomy is never done quickly. It takes a lot of time to gather signatures and gin up support. It takes more time to get the regular public excited about the measure, hopefully enough to get out to the polls.

There were seven states that passed abortion right legislation in the November 2024 election. There were 10 states with abortion related constitutional amendments with on their ballots. The states that wanted to protect abortion rights and enshrine them into the state constitution were Montana, Nevada, Missouri, Colorado, Arizona, Maryland, Wyoming, and Florida. The state that wanted further curtailing of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy was Nebraska. Wyoming and Florida were unable to pass their measure but so was Nebraska. Nevada has a 2 election pass/fail test, and they are half way there. These states join Ohio and Kansas and California and Vermont and Michigan in protecting abortion rights.

Of the seven states Missouri’s state legislature is throwing a temper tantrum. It’s not fair, they whined. People didn’t know what they were voting for, they cried! We deserve a mulligan, they challenged.

Eye roll.

I mean they’ve done everything a spoiled brat would do except stomp their little feet and threaten to hold their breath.

Pouty McPoutyton.

Well, they are kind of doing the last one.

They have put in place as many roadblocks as they possibly could. Including many bills in the state legislature about classifying abortion pills as a controlled substance, and legislation to treat abortion as a homicide. Also they have stopped allowing abortion pills to be prescribed.

But their favorite is crying foul on the Amendment 3. The amendment showed that women will be dying in hospital, unable to receive medical care.

Show me the lie.

Better yet, ask Texas or Georgia.

Best yet, google deaths post Dobbs decision in states that outright ban abortion. Cough, cough, Texas.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

But the women who need this often life saving care can’t.

Women have died, are dying, and will continue to die without access to abortion.

May the Fourth be with you 2025

It is Star Wars Day!

This is an unofficial geek holiday where we celebrate all that was, is, and will be Star Wars.

It is a pun that became mainstream popular after Margaret Thatcher won in 1979. But you know that fans were using it unironically before that, right?

Geeks of all kinds will wear fandom tee shirts, quaffs blue milk (not really) and speak in the particular Yoda cadence.

Even if I am watching a Marvel movie today, I will be representing Star Wars. Myself, I am wearing an R2D2 tee shirt that is R2 yelling as he tries to stop himself in one of the episodes. He is yelling EeYOOOOOW!! It was that or the polite D-0 droid.

But R2 is my favorite. Well, one of them. It is more correct to say that he was my first droid. My favorite is the AT-AT.

All good geeks know the story. Yes, all of it, including the 1978 Christmas Special. Yes, even that.

The story, at its heart like the best fiction, is the triumph of good versus evil. Of the scrappy rebellion against the much more impressively armored and supplied Empire. An asymmetric warfare if you were.

But it is so much more than that.

It is a love story.

It is lost family found.

It is found family comprised of friends.

It is the triumph of a moisture farmer against an itty bitty thermal exhaust port.

It is the recognition that the story continues after the rebellion wins.

It is a sprawling masterpiece of story telling, and a hat tip to the story never really ending.

It is a juggernaut that has launched toys and games and fan fiction and books and television shows and an entire universe that sparks recognition in us all.

Because it is as close as we get to a universal story.

I like to say that I am an all-purpose geek. In other words I am a non-denominational geek. I like it all, practical effects, CGI, no effects.

But you never forget your first fandom do you?

School Me Saturday 5/3/25- The little old lady whispering hush

Hey, who are you calling old?

Never mind.

This is your reminder that your semester journey is probably at an end, or nearly so. This is your reminder that it is time to rest.

Goodnight class

Goodnight class.

Goodnight to the students sitting on chairs.

Goodnight to the books and pens.

Goodnight to the backpack.

Goodnight to the dorm and the RA.

Goodnight to cram snacks.

Goodnight to coffee and energy drinks.

Goodnight to the advisor, see you next semester.

Goodnight class.

Rest well.

(apologies to Margaret Wise Brown)

Now that the semester is over it is time to take a breath. And remember who you are outside of the confines of your classes and syllabi.

Lift a glass with your friends (if you are of age).

Read something that isn’t class related. I am reading John Green’s “Everything is Tuberculosis”.

It will all start again soon enough. I hope that the class picking and scheduling was kind to you.

Goodnight, students everywhere.

Remember it is second star to the right and straight on until morning to reach Neverland.

FFS 5/2/25- Funding, slashing of

Well, there has been a lot of funding slashing in the government in the last 100 days.

All without congressional approval. All at the whim of the mad dictator.

Libraries, defunded. This will need congressional approval.

Vital research to keep us healthy, defunded. This will need congressional approval.

Needed aid to the poorest countries of the world, defunded.

Consumer protection bureau, defunded.

Medicaid that provides healthcare to millions of lower income Americans, not yet defunded but through the machinations of the House Republicans cutting Medicaid is the only way to do what is in the bill they presented. Basically defunded.

NPR and PBS, defunded. You bet I increased my sustaining member contribution to NPR immediately. This is basically an attack on the first amendment. But to the mad dictator is is striking back against people who tell the truth about him.

This is your reminder that 1% or less of the NPR and PBS funding comes from the government. The bulk of the rest is made up of sustaining members and fundraising. My first ask of the post- Join your local NPR and help them resist.

All of this is by executive order as the mad dictator goes around one of the branches of the government.

He is getting hung up by the third branch though. There are lawsuits, so many lawsuits, protesting his illegal actions. Two hundred and twenty to be exact.

There have been protests, nationwide protests against his administration and many of the companies who fell into line to his wishes. The latest was yesterday, 5/1/25.

Down to brass tacks this is a tantrum by a spoiled brat who doesn’t like it when people tell the truth about him and his friends. Well, I say friends.

A lot of this is distraction from the real work of dismantling the constitution that is going on at 1600 Pennsylvania.

They just hope that we aren’t paying attention.

They just hope that by torturing those who they deem lesser than themselves, of those countries they deem lesser than the US, that we are so distracted by the crap that’s going on we don’t pay attention when it counts.

My second ask of the post- Let them know, however you can, that we as American citizens ARE paying attention and that WE DON’T LIKE IT.

My third ask of the post is to ignore what you can, while paying attention. This kind of bottom feeder antics are to generate attention. Because that is what they want, attention. Don’t give it to them.

But Kate, aren’t you giving into their attention whoring with this post?

Yes, but it is a small amount of attention that hopefully spurs others to ignore their bullshit. There is a reason that I only post about political nonsense on Fridays. And healthcare nonsense on Tuesdays. I don’t want to give them the oxygen to fan their flames into a maelstrom.

But the reason that no Republican congress or president has dared to defund PBS is that no one wants to go on record as killing Big Bird.

Make them feel seen.

Make them feel shame.

Or pointing and laughing has always belittled the bully.

Cookie Thursday 5/1/25- No cookies today

Too many late late night cases in a row mean no cookies today.

The planned egg replacement cookies will be shunted off to next week.

I apologize to the empty stomachs of my coworkers.