rivka

I have in my hand my official Notice of Grant Award!!!

The National Institutes of Health hereby awards a grant in the amount of $225,000 [that's the first-year cost only; the total award is for three years, $150,000 in direct costs per year plus 50% indirects] to UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE in support of the project titled "Increasing Motivation for Antiretroviral Therapy Initiation: A Pilot Intervention."

OMG, you guys! I have the grant money!!

You probably thought I did ages ago, right? Because I got my ridiculously good score back in July, and my ridiculously good feedback and ridiculously good pink sheets were in by the beginning of August.

But then I waited. And waited. And slashed through red tape. And waited. Waited for the NIH budget to be approved and the higher-order NIH people to decide on their priorities and my local IRB to decide that I wasn't going to endanger my subjects and my AIDS Service Organization partner to get their federal paperwork in order and and and.

And! This morning they sent the money!! Now I can start!!!

Now I can also talk about something else which has been in the works for a while. I will be leaving my current department (Medicine/Infectious Disease) immediately and joining the Psychiatry department. Psychiatry really wants me. I will have awesome colleagues there who are interested in my work and who can make intellectual contributions to what I'm doing and who will be able to collaborate with me on new ideas. And Psychiatry has reliable funding, some of which they're willing to shell out to pay the portion of my salary that my grant won't cover. Funding I can use to develop new projects.

This is going to be a great move. And a great grant. Wonderful things are happening. I am so excited and happy!

Some friends invited us over for dinner tonight, a lovely relaxed end to what has been a very hectic (albeit enjoyable) day. Their youngest son, who I think is around ten and has only spoken a few words to me in passing before, somehow fixated on me and spent much of the evening telling me about the plot of his fantasy trilogy. He is 103 pages into the first book, but he seems to have the full trilogy planned out. It is very complicated. My comprehension was not helped by the fact that he spoke very quietly (either so that Alex would not hear the scary parts or that his brother wouldn't hear the details, I'm not sure which) but at about a hundred words a minute.

He offered to e-mail me his book-so-far. It just arrived.

I am charmed, and a little mystified, and extremely honored that he has given me his manuscript to read.

"Most people who read it say it's the best thing they've ever read," he told me modestly.

I think I love this kid.

Just out of curiosity: who's going to Minicon this year?

Dolphin jump in the air and catch ball, and catch ball, and catch ball.

I see a turtle. Girl feed turtle lettuce. Girl touch turtle's back.

I see a rays. Rays swimming in the water.

A shark scary. Daddy hold me.

The blog Smrt Lernins made me aware of a recent event in which an Idaho pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for methergine, a drug which stops uterine bleeding, because she suspected that the patient might have had an abortion.

I've taken methergine. Nearly three years ago I had a traumatic emergency D&C (dilation and curettage), a procedure which is medically identical to an induced abortion. I needed the D&C because I miscarried a dearly wanted pregnancy at 14 weeks. Following the procedure I was discharged at 3:15am with instructions to take methergine every four hours to prevent hemorrhage.

Michael and I arrived home at 3:30am, exhausted. Michael had been up for almost 24 hours at that point; I had slept at the hospital but was weak and drained. wcg, who had been sleeping on our couch to guard over Alex, walked my methergine prescription to the drugstore and had it filled. Remarkably, apparently, the pharmacist filled the prescription without any nosy questions or scolding.

I took the pills. I bled very little.

At that point in my recovery I was in so much emotional pain that, although I wrote about it extensively online, I couldn't bring myself to say the word "miscarriage" out loud. I wasn't even able to call my minister to ask for spiritual support, because I didn't think I could say what had happened. My hospital experience was deeply frightening. I bled much more than I expected before the procedure and was terrified that I would bleed more.

How much worse would my ordeal have been if I'd been cross-examined about why I needed methergine, treated like I was a bad, dirty, suspicious person? What would we have done at 3:30am if the pharmacist had refused to fill my prescription?

It doesn't matter why that Idaho woman needed methergine. Maybe she had a miscarriage, like me. Maybe she did have an abortion. That wouldn't make her any more deserving of hemorrhage than I was. What matters is that pharmacists should not be allowed to be gatekeepers who decide whether women will be allowed to receive legal and medically necessary health care. Eleven states give them that right. Those laws are wrong.

What also matters is that the pharmacist in question appears to have no true understanding of the Bible or of the essentials of Christian faith. Matthew 25:34-46 is pretty damn clear:

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

It doesn't say anything there about "I was sick, and you took care of me after first making sure that I hadn't gotten sick by doing something you disapproved of." The "I was in prison" clause doesn't even specify "I was unjustly imprisoned and hadn't really done anything wrong." WWJD? Jesus would not have left a woman in danger of bleeding to death. That doesn't seem like a particularly difficult judgment call to make.

Colin: "Waaah! I want Mommy! I want Mommy! No Mommy drink tea - Mommy carry boy! No wipe my nose! Waaah! I want see-sees! More see-sees! Waaah!"

Alex: "You'd better take MY temperature, because if one kid in a family is sick, the other one's going to get sick. Take MY temperature FIRST. I want to sit on your lap. You make me feel like you love Colin more than you love me."

Rivka: contemplates joining childfree or seeking a transfer to a remote research station north of the Arctic Circle.

I feel much better physically, today, but nevertheless I am not having much fun.

Last month I was contacted by an NIH official asking me if I would do him a big favor by serving on a special review panel for a single grant application. I am not a fool, so I said that I would be delighted.

(In the first place, why on earth would any scientist working in an area funded by NIH not want to do a reasonable and ethical favor for NIH program staff? But in the second place, my external mentor has strongly encouraged that I try to get on NIH review panels because it will help me understand what grant reviewers are looking for and how they treat applications.)

So I said yes. I read and reviewed the grant proposal. I was assigned as the fourth reviewer, and when I uploaded my critique I was considerably relieved to find that my scores were in line with the other three reviewers; I hasn't missed anything. I enjoyed the phone meeting at which we all discussed the application and settled our final scores. All in all, it was an extremely educational experience, which I think will help me next time I have a grant to submit.

So I was blown away to open my e-mail this morning and find an e-mail from NIH which begins: "Thank you very much for serving as a reviewer for CSR peer review meeting for [information deleted]. According to our records, you should receive ($200.00) for honorarium..."

Holy shit! They pay me for that?! They pay me for that, at what works out to a rate of $100 an hour? That thing I thought I was doing for free, and enjoyed, and found beneficial?

The best part is that it's an "honorarium," not salary reimbursement. That means that it goes directly into my pocket, instead of to the university to help cover my salary. Awesome.

Alex cut her hair. Again. I am completely disgusted with her. The last thing I had time for today was an emergency salon appointment.

I don't think today was the first time, either. There was a section near the front that I had noticed a while ago was suspiciously short. She denied cutting it. (This time our nanny caught her.)

She chose a new style which is quite pretty, and I confess that I am secretly delighted that I won't have to try to wrestle her hair into a ballet bun anymore, because I sucked at it. And her hair was difficult to care for because it's so fine. But for God's sake I have frequently offered to take her to the damn salon if she wants her hair cut. It is completely ridiculous of her to chew at it with scissors.



I wish there were a way to keep people from fussing over how cute she looks, because I don't want her to get a lot of positive attention for misbehaving. But of course there isn't a way.

The Shortest Day
by Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

I got a workshop approved for SUUSI this year!

Here's what will be listed in the catalog:

The Birds and the Bees WThF 2-4pm
Talking to your children about sexuality is awkward, but not talking to them about it is probably worse. This practical workshop will address what to say and when, and in how much detail. We’ll address developmental stages, discuss individual situations, and practice with role plays. For all child ages.

Rebecca Wald works in HIV research, teaches middle school OWL, and faces awkward questions from her own kids every day.

And here's the detailed description I gave the Program folks:

Workshop Outline: This workshop will include brief lecture components, guided discussion, and the opportunity to practice skills using role play.

The workshop will begin with a discussion of participants’ past experiences with sexuality education and the messages they received about sexuality from their parents. We will discuss the values we wish to pass on to our children regarding sexuality. Participants will be encouraged to share their past experiences discussing sexuality with their children and answering children’s questions.

At the first session, we’ll identify a set of topics and issues that participants particularly hope to cover during the workshop. This workshop is intended to cover all child ages, so examples may range from what names a preschooler should use for genitals to how to discuss contraception with a teenager. Other topics may include (but are not limited to) sexual abuse prevention, masturbation, puberty, dating, sexual orientation, gender identity, abstinence, and pregnancy. Ideally there will be a broad range of child ages represented among participants’ families, but if not, the workshop will be targeted more precisely at the appropriate age range based on this initial assessment.

The majority of the workshop will consist of brief lectures about children’s sexual and emotional development at different ages, followed by a discussion of common situations which may arise at that age and topics parents may wish to address with their children. Particular efforts will be made to address all the issues and topics of interest which were identified at the first session. Participants will have the opportunity to submit anonymous dilemmas for group discussion and workshop leader advice. Participants will also have the opportunity to submit anonymous questions about sexuality for the workshop leader to answer. Participants will be given the opportunity to practice sexuality discussions in parent-“child” role plays.


I am excited! I think this has the potential to be very cool. I need a minimum of ten sign-ups for the workshop to be considered viable, so it still may not happen. But here's hoping.