Week 9 - Oh dear, what a moment.

Now that we made our mind up, here we are parents and kid ready to start the process. First we need to sign the waiver, the 'informed consent'. Then the boy will get a Mixed Meal Tolerance Test (MMTT), then we'll get the final answer if he's accepted into the trial, according to his blood test results.

The waiver. With all the tact in the world, Nurse B. lets us know that without the 'consent' signed they cannot even put the kid on the scale. So please mom and dad, take your time, read, ask any questions you might have, and if you agree, sign it. We'll give you of course copies of each and every sheet. We'll leave you alone to your thoughts so you can decide. Meanwhile the boy was having the time of his life, with most of the nurses playing with and treating him.

Here we are then reading the paper, which of course states all sort of horrible things that can happen since the drug is still experimental. Mom really had a big emotional moment, feeling like I believe she never felt before -not precisely on the sunshine sidewalk-, Dad trying to keep up with the decision. A word here: On one hand, I wouldn't expect the consent to say nice things, and on the other, my research -good or bad-, did not result on too horrific stories related to that drug. Yes, a guy had some rash for 2 months, another had high liver enzymes -which went down when the treatment was interrupted for this very reason-. Besides that, I haven't heard of anyone dying of the thing, not even getting admitted to the hospital. In any case, we'll be watching for the smallest sign of trouble. I think that if I have to pick one of the toughest moments through all this process, yes, it was signing the papers.

The test. Well, in retrospective it did not go that bad. The boy had a bit of a rough time when he got the needle in his arm -he fought like a cat, and at that time we did not think of using some numbing cream-, then he was given a bottle of "Boost", that he deeply dislikes, and from there every 15/30 minutes he had a blood sample drawn, throughout a few hours of the day. He actually spent most of the time resting, and when the test was over, we just left to get some lunch. No biggie here.