My first job was at a little private lab in the Mission District in San Francisco, when it was becoming a Hispanic area. I learned how to draw blood and get a first morning urine sample in Spanish. During the four years of that job pregnancy testing went from The Frog Test to Latex Particle testing, the first non-animal test for the pregnancy test . I saw lots of parasites there.

After a 3 month trip to Europe I got a job in the Microbiology Lab at Mt Zion Hospital. Microbiology was my favorite subject in college and during my training so I looked for a job in that area. In retrospect, that was the best job I ever had. Dr. Larry Drew, was hired to run the Microbiology Lab. He authored some chapters in Bailey and Scotts Diagnostic Microbiology during the 60’s to the 80’s. I helped set up the training program for new Med Techs in that facility, taught on the bench and did some lecturing in parasitology. (I always found more parasites than any one else) They talked for years about my famous “peanut butter lecture” where I demonstrated the making of specimen preparations with what looked like a stool specimen but was peanut butter and finished it off by licking the sticks I had been using! I helped write the manual for Parasitology there. I enjoyed teaching and was voted the best teacher by the students.

I met my husband Ron, a San Francisco native in 1965 and we were married in 1966. Our daughter Samantha was born in 1974 and we moved to the East Bay, El Sobrante. I left Mt Zion at that point and stayed home for a few years. After being transferred and living in a couple of places (including Midland Michigan for a short time), we ended up in the state of Washington on 6.6 acres at the crest of the Cascades at Snoqualmie Pass and started to build a house for a permanent home.

I went back to school in a retraining program in Yakima Washington to learn how to use automated equipment, which I had never used in my first training and had not used on subsequent jobs. It seemed that the amount of material which we (there were 2 of us “retreads”) were required to cover had a least doubled from our first training! It had been 20 years at that point. We trained at two different hospitals which was a good opportunity to see different styles. We also spent a week looking at abnormal blood smears, which really paid off later when I did a lot of differentials and was able to pick up some leukemias and lymphomas. Eventually got a job at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, about 60 miles from our home, in the Student Health Center running the lab and x-ray dept for a year while the regular tech went to Europe with her husband on Sabbatical. That was a challenge jumping in and doing x-rays and handling the lab by myself. It was fun working with the students, RN’s and Doctors.

After that I worked part time in the Seattle area in a private microbiology lab, East Side Medical Lab. I finally found my first E. histolytica doing parasitology there. As the time approached for my daughter to go to high school, we moved from our rural area to Portland, Oregon.

Sam went to Aloha High School in Oregon and I got a job in the Clinical Microbiology lab at Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital. I was again working and teaching on the bench. It was a huge microbiology lab with about 40 employees. There was a large micro lab as well as specialty labs: Antibiotics, Mycology, TB and Parasitology labs. I rotated through them to train and ended up specializing in TB and Parasitology. The gal I worked with was a CAP referee in TB and Parasitology. It was in that lab that we cultured for free living amoeba from the eye clinic (contact lens infections) and I was able to be part of culturing amoeba from the tissue of an AIDS patient who had sores all over his body. It was the first known case of amoeba infecting skin of a patient. I enjoyed the job but it was stressful, so I was glad when Sam graduated and I was able to settle her at Oregon State in Corvallis. We moved back to our home in the mountains. I missed my trees, wildflowers and stream.

After my return from Portland I worked in and managed the lab at Cle Elum Family Medicine, the local clinic, for 11 years. I again did x-ray there. In 2003 I retired from the Clinic but kept a part time job helping to manage the lab portion of the local Urgent Care Center for the local hospital which is 25 miles away. I was one of the only registered technologists in the area. I have enjoyed this work, however, I just retired from this job as of September 1, 2006. I will still be available for fill-in at the clinic lab. I have enjoyed immensely my career as a Medical Technologist - I have done a lot of interesting things and met a lot of wonderful people.