At my new job, not only did I perform all the diagnostic tests and procedures I had been doing for close to a decade, including blood gases, but I also broadened my skill set. I learned to assist Whole Lung Lavage, a treatment for Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis (PAP) that was developed at the medical center. I also learned how to drop arterial lines for exercise testing. Though the work was challenging, it was not innovative. Each procedure had already gone through many clinical trials and had precise processes defined. I was simply learning the steps while keeping the equipment sanitary and in optimal working condition.
Then one day, the director of the exercise lab spoke to me in private. He needed some changes to a Pascal program that analyzed respiratory data. Since I was studying computer science, he asked if I would make the changes.
Of course, I said yes!
I rewrote most of the program because I was studying structured methods that made code more resilient and easier to change. I took: Introduction to Computer Science with Pascal (A+) spring term, Introduction to Information Structures (A) summer term, and Data Structures and Files (C+) fall term.
The program did what it was supposed to do, to the unexpected chagrin of the exercise lab’s assistant director. I could not understand why he wasn’t happy about my success. I thought we were friends, but one morning I came into the lab to run the program and the executable file was gone. Erased. Deleted.
With a shrug, the assistant director dismissed my concern. “It was there yesterday.” Then he brushed his blond bangs away from his narrowed green eyes. “You must have done something wrong.”
Did he think I was that gullible? Did he even care what I thought?
I fumed in silence as I replaced the missing file with a backup copy. Never had I experienced such a direct and despicable act to embarrass, harass, and discourage me. It never happened again, and I eventually forgave him. I figured he reacted badly because he felt threatened—a natural response for a villain, yet I was soon to discover that the information technology (IT) field had more than its fair share of villains.
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A Speculative Memoir
In a 1989 journal entry, I poured out my dashed dreams to God. Those few precious moments became a watershed event in an unfolding narrative that began ten years before when I turned my back on God. Turning my back on God did many things, most of them sad, but foremost it made me forget who I was. But there was someone who never forgot. Someone who neve…