Two Trips to Duke on Monday

I started the clinical trial! No way to know if I am actually getting the drug.

It is sort of complicated because the pills have to be refrigerated and taken precisely 2 hours after a small meal.

I spent the morning at Duke! Traffic on 147 made me 25 minutes late (until I hit 147, I was going to be early for once).

I had blood drawn, had an EKG, peed in a cup, answered a million questions about how I feel, saw Dr Reidel, received my drugs in a sack with an ice pack to keep them cold, and then finally headed to the office.

At the office, I got some AWESOME new info from someone; totally cleared up my confusion on a difficult topic.

Then about ten minutes before I was scheduled to take my first dose of the study drug, the nurse called me. She was frantic to make sure I had not taken the drug yet. My heart sank. Had they determined some reason to keep me out of the clinical trial?! But no. They had not taken enough blood, and they absolutely needed to do that before I took my first dose. If I would come back, they would pay for my parking.

I headed back to Duke. It took awhile for them to slip me in between other patients, but they finally drew two more vials of blood. The nurse ordered me to go have a light snack so that I could take my first dose in two hours. The Seattle's Best coffee shop in the Duke Clinic cafeteria had a lovely pumpkin loaf for my light snack.

As I left, I felt completely exhausted, exactly how I felt last week after they took six vials of blood. I drove home and crawled into bed and slept for over a hour. After my nap, I felt fine.