Work update
After our break from the PGS decision-support tool, we came back to it this week with fresh eyes. Actually stepping back rather than pushing through made it so much easier to see where things could be improved and to think clearly about the whole thing, instead of just staring at the same paragraphs on a loop. We ended up rewriting a lot of the sections to make everything flow better and improve general readability, realising once we looked again that some parts were actually confusing and repetitive. It made so much more sense with a bit of distance. Then our supervisors told us they're genuinely impressed with the work we've done, which meant a lot. It was a bit surprising too, given how few hours we've actually put in recently, which felt like more proof that the rest is doing more for this work than the hours ever were. We'd said from the beginning that this, alongside our own pride in it, would be how we'd know we'd done well.
We are nearing the end of the project and it's really exciting to see it come together. It is going to be made into a website and eventually used in a future study to assess its effectiveness in helping patients make informed and values-based decisions about polygenic score testing. I'm so happy it has the potential to do something good and be used practically. On reflection, I'm also glad we focused more of our time and energy onto this project as opposed to the more theoretical ethical analysis paper, because it feels more applicable in the real world, touching real people who actually need it rather than staying abstract.
Proof that camping and crutches can be compatible
Earlier this week we took on Wreck Beach and its infamous 490 stairs, which felt like a reasonable test of whether crutches and the outdoors could still coexist. Verdict: yes, but you need a VERY committed friend (Anna) to carry you back up. We were the subject of many rounds of applause. I am very lucky to have an Anna in my life, not only as my personal packhorse and piggyback provider, but because she is a wonderful friend giving endless laughter and support.
The real test came with Tofino. The trip was planned, as most good ones seem to be here, at an evening barbecue, organised with roughly the amount of notice you'd expect from that description. Next thing we know we're being picked up at 7am to go to the ferry to Vancouver Island with Shaojie (the one who threw the rock that started this whole crutches saga), Dolores, a Dutch international student, and Imogen, a Tofino regular from Ontario. Shockingly, given how last-minute the planning was, nothing went wrong. We rented a car and drove to a campsite in Ucluelet and that evening rented boards for a sunset surf. My job, appropriately, was looking after the bags and beer, occasionally taking photos. The next day I managed to go for a swim in a lake too which made me very happy (small victories). On the way back we stopped at an ice cream shop with actual goats grazing on the roof. Canada is wonderfully strange sometimes.
From there we took the bus from Nanaimo to Victoria to stay with some family friends (or more accurately, my mum's best friend's parents' friends, Duncan and Moragh), which is about as random a connection as it sounds. They welcomed us in without hesitation, and it was the first time I'd been in an actual home since the Easter holidays, which I didn't realise I'd been missing until I was suddenly sitting in someone's kitchen. They introduced us to basically all of their friends, and we ended up swimming in all of their various bodies of water, which, again, I'm just delighted to still be able to do. We also went to some beautiful gardens, where Anna wheeled me around in a wheelchair like the world's most patient chauffeur. We got the ferry back to Vancouver and finished the week with some whale watching from the sun deck.
Between the feedback at work and a week spent mostly outdoors, it's been a good reminder that slowing down doesn't mean things stop moving forward :)