We Wear Pink

Today was my ten minute presentation to the class regarding the drug Fosamax. Fosamax is s biphosphonate that prevents the loss of bone mass. It's used to treat osteoporosis in postmenopausal and menopausal women, as well as to treat Paget's disease, which is a disease that causes abnormal breakdowns of bone tissue in specific areas. However, some of the off label uses include the treatment of excessive blood calcium levels, as well as the treatment of cancers that have metastasized into bone structures (such as lung, breast, multiple myeloma and prostate cancers.)

It was approved by the FDA in 1995 but when the patent expired in 2008, the manufacturer,  Merck, did not want to deal with the controversy associated with the drug any longer, and took no action to renew the patent. I even included an anecdote about a woman who was cooking Christmas dinner with her daughter, and sat down to talk to her  daughter. When she stood up, her right leg immediately fractured. This was supposed to be a very rare side effect, but after the research that I did over the past few days, it was found to be really common. Instead of strengthening their bones, it was making them weaker in most people.

After my presentation, a few more people presented theirs, and then we moved on to the next topic in our class, body image. I absolutely love talking about body image since it is a topic that is near and dear to my heart since I struggled with my body image for a really long time.Monte asked us to go around the circle and say something that we didn't like about ourselves. Then, we had to go around and talk about something that we love about ourselves. I didn't really have trouble with this, as I have accepted all aspects of myself, but this was really difficult for some people.

During study hall, we were supposed to watch a movie that talked about body image through America or something, but the library messed up the checkout. It was actually a gymnastics safety video from the eighties. For the first five minutes none of us really understood how this related to MHS, so Zach eventually texted Monte to ask what was going on. As a result, we just watched some videos that did relate to body image, but were not part of the curriculum.

We had a proctor night at Cafe Coco, which is this really laid-back organic cafe that reminded me a lot of the places that I love to go to in Berkeley. It was sort of a taste of the things to come, as my trip is drawing to a close very shortly. I don't know where all the time has gone. I really just feel like I am going to miss all of the people in my proctor group. In just three weeks I think that we have formed really strong bonds and it seems strange that I am probably not going to see them ever again after tomorrow.

Back row from left to right: Lizet, Alex, Hummd, Julianne and Bambi (her name is also Alex and it got confusing after a while)
Front row: Kate, Sofi, Taylor, Brenna and Hannah.
Also known as the best proctor group ever.