This is a mishmash update.

Because I've had to be in Nashville numerous times this week, I decided to take advantage of BMS's offer to put me up in a hotel and take me out to dinner. Best decision ever. (Stop laughing, Janice!)

My room is equipped with everything to include Purell! I had a lovely Italian dinner delivered to my room and now I'm visiting with you and organizing some thoughts from today.

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Driving down the mountain was easy-peasy because there were few large trucks.

Unfortunately, though, I started to think I was having side effects from my new clinical trial. I felt I'd all of a sudden been transported to Georgia. Today, some team (I believe Vanderbilt) played some other team (obviously from Georgia) filled the I-24 with a stream of cars pointed toward Nashville. It really was uncanny. I think I was the only Tennessean on the road.

I rendezvoused with Lucy from pulmonary research to have blood drawn. As always, we chatted it up a bit. I pointed out the significant sentence I'd discovered the other night. The sentence that sat on the page as a paragraph all alone and was probably the most important sentence in the entire 14 page document listing procedures and protocols:

BMS-986020 has been given to normal human volunteers for up to 7 days.

My question for Lucy, "Was this Phase 1 in its entirety?"

She smiled and said, "Yes."

My next question, "What do they mean by normal?"

She smiled and said, "They were healthy volunteers with no pulmonary disease."

I responded, "There's nothing normal about that!"

She smiled.

My voice rose in pitch, "What kind of person would do that? Oh... someone who might be paid well?"

She smiled.

My voice rose higher in pitch, "I'm a generous sort of person, but that's nuts!"

She smiled. (Mind you, Lucy is super - these were smiles that agreed with me.)

My voice was now at a squeaky pitch, "That was the entire Phase 1? A bunch of normal nuts taking the same drugs I am, but only for seven days?"

She smiled.

It's all about speeding up the process. IPF is growing and killing a lot of people. Pharmaceuticals see a horizon of big bucks. We see hope.

Lucy elaborated that the Phase 1 normal nuts probably had the most amazingly complicated protocols and were hospitalized the entire time under strict observation. I can't even imagine.


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After I left Vanderbilt's Pulmonary Clinic I was in an extraordinarily good mood... and why shouldn't I have been? I love my life. We all have crap to deal with. I have wonderful parents, beautiful children, amazing friends, a beautiful home, a passion for art that glorifies the walls of my home. I am one lucky woman!

Though nothing about me screams rock n' roll, as I scanned the radio on the way to my hotel, the following song came on and it made me smile so BIG. Not all the lyrics apply unless one makes some huge metaphorical adjustments, but some of the lyrics made me bust out laughing because they were so fitting and inspiring and filled me with determination. I flew down the highway with all the Georgia fans going to hotels, too.

Hmmm, I wonder which team won? No matter, because I felt like a winner... one way or another.