What It’s Like Working In An Infectious Disease Laboratory
Summer 2013
Soon after graduating from Regis University, I had visions of a large office space, one that I was going to occupy at least five days per week. There’d be a wide oak wooden desk and a plush black chair for me to sit in, and a window tucked into a beige wall offering a view of Colorado’s snow-capped mountains.
I was going to do better than my beloved father, a master’s graduate from the exact same college twenty-eight years previous. Dad ended up working at the airport, eventually rising to the level of floor coordinator with Continental Airlines, a fate he certainly hadn’t envisioned for himself. We were both insistent that I was going to experience a much better set of professional circumstances, the two of us enjoying the spoils.
After interviewing for seven stressful months, I secured a position at a hospital facility, an institution focusing care on patients with pulmonary disorders, many of them considered esoteric. But instead of working in a corner office, I was forced to settle for an entry level position with the tuberculosis laboratory. And Dad? He became sick with multiple myeloma, a pernicious case of lymphatic cancer that quickly became terminal.
Each and every day I spent in the laboratory I was disbelieving, as I’d spent two years of my life…
