September- The Month of Hurricane Ida

    Growing up in Sacramento, the only natural disasters I had experienced were relatively minor earthquakes. Earlier this year, I experienced the Texas power crisis in Dallas when the severe winter storms passed through our area. Our apartment was out of power for 4 days and without water for an additional 3 days after that. I learned many important lessons from that experience, however I thought I would never have to experience anything similar to that until I moved to New Orleans. Shortly before we were scheduled to take our first test from the introductory module, Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana as a category 4 hurricane. I filled up my bathtub to prepare for the Hurricane in case I lost water and stocked up on food and drinking water. I thought I would be mostly fine from the Hurricane because people had told me the area I lived in downtown did not lose power often. As fate would have it, the Hurricane makes an eastward shift to New Orleans and I lose power and water. But, of course, I go to check my bathtub in the morning and there is no water in there because the bathtub stopper did not provide complete stoppage and the water slowly leaked out through the night. After 2 days of no power and many PB+J sandwiches, I decide I have to leave to my aunt's house in Baton Rouge and go to pick up my cousin, a Tulane resident at the children's hospital in uptown. She had no cell service for the past 17 hours and was only able to contact me because she was able to get to the children's hospital and use other phones. She was sleeping in her bathroom for the last 2 days because her roof had extensive damage and was leaking everywhere. On the drive there, there were two places I had to get out of my car and move debris from the road just so I could make it to uptown to pick up my cousin. We finally made it to Baton Rouge by taking I-12 around Slidell because I-10 west was closed. Thankfully, my aunt's neighborhood in Baton Rouge was lucky enough to have power. 

    I was able to fly out of the Baton Rouge airport at the end of the week back to Sacramento where I could better focus on the curriculum and finally take the test we had planned to take that second Tuesday. We then moved on to the Inflammation module. Learning about inflammation pharmacology was interesting, and it was highly relevant to learn about the mechanism of actions and interactions of many drugs I had taken before such as Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen, etc,.. I really enjoy how we are exposed to clinical and patient relevance from the beginning. All our case studies and questions introduce different scenarios and clinical situations in which the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of the medications we learn in class become relevant. As the semester progresses, I hope to build upon what I've learned so far, foster meaningful relationships, participate in impactful volunteer experiences, and enjoy what the city of New Orleans has to offer. 

Sree Nallamothu