We Found the Toxin. I Lost My Nerve

The instrument beeped at 2:13 a.m. I was supposed to be excited—first airborne detection of MCCPs in the Western Hemisphere. Instead, I just felt tired. I stared at the data, then at my hands, then at the fields outside, where the biosolids get spread and nobody thinks about what floats up. I wanted to tell someone, but who? My PI would call it a breakthrough. The agency would want more samples. I’d just found another reason to worry, another chemical we don’t understand, another thing to add to the list of things we can’t fix yet. We logged the data. We wrote the paper. But I can’t stop thinking about how many things we only notice by accident—how many things we’ll never catch. Sometimes I wonder if the real experiment is just seeing how long I can keep caring. #LabBurnout #ScienceFatigue #GradSchoolLife #Science