About Tyler

     I have always been fond of nature, whether that be plants, animals, or even the insects I collected in my pockets as a toddler. And it didn't stop at the living parts of nature, but also included severe weather, rocks and minerals, and outer space. This fascination with the world around me had always led me to want to know more, and so I'd watch documentaries, educational TV (RIP Steve Irwin), read books, and eventually search the web for whatever topics were at the forefront of my mind. As I got older, around high school-age, our family was able to dabble more in these interests. I was lucky in the fact that my dad and siblings (and eventually my mom) had similar interests. So we became a home for exotic pets, including a few species of lizards, snakes, tarantulas, turtles, and scorpions. I also filled some of my weekend hours volunteering in the reptile and insect room of a local zoo, providing information to the public on the critters that we cared for in there. Additionally, our family was able to participate in a Kansas Herpetological Society "hunt" one year, where I made it into their newsletter for discovering the first recorded western ribbon snake in Atchison county, Kansas. During these same years, we had visited a number of natural history museums and attended numerous Reptile Shows and Gem & Mineral Shows. Pretty nerdy family, huh?

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     My love for the sciences continued throughout college, but shifted a bit more towards the microscopic side of the spectrum. Part of this shift was due to a pre-existing anxiety surrounding health (or rather, disease). While this flavor of anxiety had plagued me since early childhood, as I got older, it became more of a fascination. I contribute this change to learning more about health science and disease, and thus I better understood the contexts in which disease occurs. This new interest was something I held onto dearly, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. My first thought was to combine this new love of medical science and my earlier love for animals and become a veterinarian. But then I grew uneasy at the thought of the nearly a decade of study that it requires. So I shifted my focus onto humans with the plan of becoming a nurse, because again, the idea of nearly a decade of schooling to become an APRN or MD was unreasonable to me. Not so much because I couldn't handle it, academically, but because it is very hard to make enough income to live off of being a CNA or phlebotomist, even if you do either profession full time while being in school full time. I wanted access to "adult" money, sooner, so that I didn't have to shop with a calculator in hand wondering if how many meals a day we could afford. American sure doesn't make things easy, huh? So with plans to be an RN, I went to college. Not even two semesters in and I changed my mind. I had taken a course in microbiology as a nursing prerequisite and my world was altered.

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     I approached my microbiology professor and asked if there was a profession where I could do the sorts of things we did in the class- culture bacteria on various media, interpret biochemical tests thereof, and identify the cause(s) of infection. I got a rather surprising answer of "Yes,", there is a profession where you can do exactly that and so much more. She got me on track to become a Medical Laboratory Scientist (MLS); an occupation that I had never heard of before but is crucial for the diagnosis of just about any condition. As an MLS, you'd be the individual to perform testing on samples including blood, urine, tissues, sterile body fluids, cerebral spinal fluid, stool, semen, and any other fluid or tissue type imaginable. We use automated and manual testing methods to generate results, interpret those results for accuracy, and communicate those results to the patient's care team. We also maintain the instrumentation used in the lab, perform blood typing, and issue blood products for transfusion. This is just a small taste of what you can do as an MLS, and it was exactly what I was looking for: microbiology, science, and work in the lab (an introvert's dream).

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     I have always been enthusiastic about nature and science with a willingness to share my knowledge, but as an anxious introvert, it had been hard to find a path in life that would accommodate my passions as well as my personality type. The lab provided an atmosphere where I was comfortable about the level of social interaction I would be expected to have, and I would also be surrounded by people with some similar interests and personalities. And while I absolutely love the work I do as a microbiology-exclusive MLS, I still yearned for more. I wanted to share my deep-dives, work-related or otherwise, in a constructive and educational format. Why then, in the era of TikTok and YouTube, didn't I start my own series? To be completely honest, that shit it tedious and annoying to put together, if I could even bother to remember. Also, social media has been kind of a nightmare in recent years, like an empire that's slowly collapsing. Lastly, I did not have the confidence to put my face and content out there for the public to judge. So no, I did not use social media to start this adventure.

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     As I've gotten older, however, I have found myself giving much less of a fuck about what people think of me. I feel like that's a huge accomplishment for an introvert with mental health issues and some level of autism. That change in attitude has contributed heavily to the timing of all of this. Another contributor to the whole "Why now?" is that I am currently pursuing a master's degree in Medical Microbiology and Biochemistry with plans to apply for the PhD program after completion. Bolstering my knowledge in this field as well as my literature and database search capabilities has made me a million times more confident in my abilities to provide people with accurate and current information, no matter what we are discussing. Finally, the last reason why I am deciding that now is the time is because podcasts have become a popular communication tool and there is an abundance of more accessible information and resources that enable this to be an option for us little rural Kansans. Has this been available for years, now? Probably. But life has finally started to come together to make mine and Spencer's goals more achievable. Hopefully it works out!​​​

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     I can't finish my introduction without mentioning my passion for helping create a more science-literate public. I think everyone can agree that there has been uncertainty when it comes to knowing who or what to trust when it comes to public health concerns. What can alleviate some of that uncertainty is having a better grasp on some of the health science concepts that are involved, which can help people decide if a statement is more likely to be true, false, or somewhere in between. My goal is to provide a basis for understanding topics within medical science as well as motivate people to seek out the best resources to confirm or debunk statements they hear online, on social media, or from their peers.