Week 4: Bonn - Hannover - Norderney

Bonn: Monday night we watched the German movie The Lives of Others. It was a very good and very enlightening movie. Even though the movies I usually watch over and over are happily ended Pixar films, I would rewatch this one several times and recommend it to friends. It is not a happy movie, just as that time in East Germany was not happy, but it is nonetheless an excellent representation of a past time that leaves viewers hoping to never let it happen again. Hannover: The first place we visited on Wednesday was a medical school in Hannover where they do heart transplants and transpants for other organs such as lungs. They also do artificial heart implantations. We got to see what one of the devices looks like before it's put into a person. It's basically a small pump with tubes on both ends that allows the blood to bypass the malfunctioning part of the heart and continue on the path it is supposed to go. The dowside of this device is that it is connected to a large controller and two battery packs that seem like they would be cumbersome and frustrating and difficult to deal with, but you must keep them with you to stay alive. To help with the extra luggage though, the device comes with a bag or a belt or a vest type thing to carry it around more easily. We also got to meet one of their patients who was the neatest guy ever. He only knew a little English but he showed us how his deviec was hooked into him. He taught us how to change the batteries, which you have to do ever 4-6 hours and how to plug it inot the wall, which you have to do every night. He also showed us how he carries his around. This man was very greatful for his and named it Maria, as in the mother of Jesus, because in five years he will need to be ready to make the deision to try a heart transpant or keep the device. He had been doing well on his device, but recently acquired an infection where the tube leaves his body which is common fo most artificial heart patients. The part that was the most exciting was when he let us listen to his pump and it did sound exactly like a litte whirring motor. The really weird thing with artificial hearts, though, is that people have no pulse or very weak pulses since the pump makes a continuous flow. We met some other patients who were waiting for their heart transplants. Most looked fine, but in reality, they could not take many steps before beomming exhausted and out of breath and going home was too dangerous for them. The way the waiting list works in Germany is that a patient can get on a priority list, but they have to wait in the hospital. They cannot leave or their name is taken off the list. The average waiting time is 8-10 mnths. Just imagine though, you are sitting in this hospital room that is larger than those in the United States, but you share it with two or three other people. You cannot leave, you have to wait for our family to come see you, and every time the doctor waks into your room you get excited because you think they found you a heart, but most likely the really didn't. The hardest story for me was one patient who had a new family. He was very young and very tall; almost exactly the same height as my best friend at home. For him to get a heart, someone also very tall and relatiely young would have to lose their life. It is awful all ways around. The next place we visited was not as hard as the first. It was a research center that uses axolotls to study their regeneration. These little creatues can heal wounds in their tails without any scarring. They can aso regrow entire limbs and some other portions of their bodies. They are hoping to use what they learn from the DNA and chemicals that these little guys produce and incoorporate it into human medicine for wound and burn victims. The research ceter also has an entire room filled with Australian spiders that they use to harvest silk. The silk can be used as a bandaid of sorts for skin and even organs. Since it is also very strong, it could also be made into suture material with enough product testing. The body will not reject the material since it is a completely natural and biodegradable substance. This was probably the most incredible thing to be because when I was in highschool, I read a magazine article about research with spider silk and mixing it with silicon to make medial materials. That article is what got me interested in material science for the first time and is the reason I chose to major in chemical engineering as a freshman. I feel like I've come full circle with vetinary medicine as my career choice. Seeing the spiders again assured me that I have not strayed too far from that origional dream. Norderney: In Norderney, we spent a lot of quality time with our rented bikes and got to know each others quirks such as the sticky lock on my bike that took a little wiggeling to unlock and my bikes small desire to avoid shifting gears. The bikes here in Germany, though, are much nicer I think for long rides than the normal bikes in the United States because they have larger seats and the handlebars are tall enough that you can sit up staight. They also have baskets so you can carry all of your things withough needing a backpack that keeps your back all hot and sweaty. On Thursday, we toured the mudflats, the area of the sea ground left exposed when the tide goes out. The first few steps are through plants at the shore line, one of which is edible and tastd eally nice and salty. I wouldn't mind it at all in a salad. I was also assured later by some of the others on the trip that it does not actully make you loose your hair unless your tour guide is missing some of his own. We then took our first steps into the mud and there were so many tiny worm-like crab creatures crawling through the mud we stood in that my feet felt like they were just waking up from being asleep when all the needles begin their poking. That was the only uncomfortable part of the entire hike. The rest was amazing. We held stranded bright bluish purple jellyfish, played with mussels and crabs, learned how to tell male and female crabs apart and raced worms that dig deep into the mud. That first night we went to dinner at a little place near a lighthouse and a small airport. Afterards, some of us managed to get lost and turned around in the middle of grass covered sand dunes. There came three forks in our path and we tried all three. The last one finally brought us back to recognied territory and we found our way back to the hostel. In the end it was a fun and enjoyable side adventure that was followed by a relaxing time watching the sunset over the beach. Friday afternoon we spent some more time with our bikes touring the island and then visited a clinic that is like a combination of a physical therapy place, a hotel, and a spa. It was an extremely busy week and there is so much to remember.