WILTIMS #146: Not alone

One of the most rewarding feelings is to have your faith in humanity reaffirmed. I spent most of my day trying to convince people to take a break from the incessant studying to play an already scheduled kickball game for which they had all voluntarily signed up. Between wrangling my team and trying to convince the other team's captain not to postpone the game, I was emotionally exhausted. Who knew that it's unheard of for medical students to take an hour break from studying three days before one of our seemingly omnipresent exams?

When it all came to nothing and we canceled the game, I went to study as far away from other people as I could get. Times like this I go to the abandoned cafeteria in an old office building that our school recently acquired. The room has big windows and is creepily empty in a post-zombie-apocalypse sort of way - in other words, perfect. Then while listening to music through my headphones, I hear another muffled melody break through during a pause in my playlist.

Another student had, without knowing I was there, started playing songs on the disused mini-grand piano in the corner. I paused my music and listened, quietly singing to myself when he played a song I knew. When he had finished and got up to leave, he noticed me and came over to apologize for disturbing my studying. I told him not to and we talked for a bit about the building, the upcoming exam, and the importance of balancing school with everything else that makes life enjoyable. It's funny that the times I most need reassurance that I picked the right species to try to save, inevitably someone sane comes along to remind me of just that.

TIL: MPTP (1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine) is a synthetic compound that was used for a while as an illicit drug because it caused heroin-like effects. That stopped however after 1984 with a rash of ER visits from users of the drug, which was causing a very familiar cluster of neurological deficits. It turns out this compound causes a form of Parkinson's disease by crossing the blood brain barrier, degrading to a toxin and destroying the cells of the substantia nigra. This region of the brain produces all of the dopamine for the brain and it's destruction results in the characteristic tremors and other associated symptoms. This is actually one of the few known causes of Parkinson's, as most cases are idiopathic.