Go ahead, categorize me

How does science relate to my life… how doesn’t it relate to my life? From my laptop to refrigerator, television, cold medicine, aluminum, cars, electric heating, gasoline… our entire lives are run by technologies and inventions. I could go on for hours talking about how science influences my life, but how does it significantly relate to my life. How do I blog about this without revealing more than desired-- this in itself could be a blog topic, on how science has removed the boundaries of privacy from individuals’ lives, but I will continue on a different matter.

Undoubtedly, the most significant way that science impacts my life is through medical disciplinary. All of my major life memories have been marked by medical illnesses and the repercussions there afterwards.

One of my earliest memories is of when I was five years old being carried into a hospital by my father. I was here just a few days before for a fever and sore throat, but now I could not walk or move my arms. I remember knowing I felt very sick, but I did not understand the gravity of the situations as adults do. After multiple blood tests, X-rays, physical examinations and other excruciating assessment there was a loud argument between my parents and the doctors. The doctors insisted that it was simply an abnormal allergic reaction to red dye, and that some antihistamine would clear everything up in a matter of days. My mother demanded that they perform another Strep test or else she would withdraw me from their care. The doctors reluctantly agreed and performed the test. As my mother had deduced, I had undiagnosed Streptococcus that had entered my blood stream causing Rheumatic fever which explained the severe pain throughout my extremities. Their tests earlier had failed to detect the bacteria in my body. (Of course the medical field is always improving their tests, and today they have rapid Strep test and a throat culture for suspected Strep throat cases.)

I have always wondered why they didn’t just do the strep test again in the first place. Have we trusted the answers that science provides too much? So much so that we are willing to bet a child’s life on it? In this case our technologies failed, our seeing-devices failed to see truly what was going on. Yet we were adamant that these technologies were not wrong at all. This is because the seeing-devices we use are only going to give the correct answer or output if the situation is right and our inputs are correctly represented. The seeing-devices did not produce the correct answer because the bacteria were in too early of a stage in order to be diagnosed. In sum our seeing-devices are only as good as the way we apply them.

The mortality of doctors was one the first lessons I learned about science, learning it even before attending Kindergarten. However my life has always been plagued with medical “mysteries.” I was what many called a sickly child—always getting the worse of every cold and flu. Nonetheless, I had a happy and fairly healthy childhood, and it was not until my teenage years that science would return to take a shot at me again.

Hypothyroidism.

It’s some long Greek word which basically means a disorder in which one has a deficient thyroid that does not produce enough hormones. I can’t say I really remember the day I found out I had it all too well. I went in for tests because my mile times in cross country were much slower than my times I had the previous year and I was feeling abnormally tired. We got the call that my TSH levels were abnormal, and they wanted to perform some more tests in order to get the correct dosage for my medicine. I never really thought much about hypothyroidism after that; it did not affect my life much and besides being a little fatigued I did not have many symptoms. However as I continued my education I learned much more about this disorder than I ever wanted to.

I can remember my sophomore year of high school sitting in biology class. Our teacher was an eighty year old woman, who had never married but had taught her entire life. She was about 4’10” and was the shape of a chicken nugget. She hated me and I loathed her. In our class we learned about many disorders, but I was surprised when she started talking about hyper- and hypothyroidism. She discussed many of the symptoms, such as fatigue and increased sensitivity to cold. However as she continued she began to use words such as obese, heavy, lethargic, dull, and depressed. I have never felt more humiliated or bleak about my future. Was I really all of these things described? Would I really have difficult time learning because of this disorder? I never before gave the disorder much merit before or thought it had much influence on my life. It is hard to have that same positive attitude towards your disorder after biology teacher goes from learning about syphilis and the other horrifying disorder and diseases to something that you actually have.

To say that this event affected me is an understatement. However I grew older I realized that these definitions, symptoms, and Greek words were all in a sense made up. What words did they use to describe me before my diagnosis? How did they treat people with hypothyroidism before they “discovered” it? How does the way that they talk about Hypothyroidism affect those who have it? I am not obese, dull, depressed, or any of the terrible words that chicken nugget used to describe my disorder. In reality hypothyroidism is kind of like an itch—it is annoying, but doesn’t really interfere with your life.

I hated being categorized and defined. I was put into this box that science conveniently made for me, in which there was no room to individualize or grow. But that is what science does isn’t it? It is a categorical way of looking at the world; which is fine and dandy until you are the one who is categorized. In a way I was an example of science doing boundary work on hypothyroidism, what is and what isn’t hypothyroidism.

After reviewing my blog I guess my entry is basically the theme of this class. The way that science describes and categorizes the world affects society and individuals by the way people write and talk about.