I have to stop picking up my mail late in the afternoon when I'm tired. I have to stop reading some of it while still parked by the mailboxes which are about a mile from my home. I just have to stop because often I start weeping for all the goodness in my life. Though this is always unobserved, I think I should stop.

Yesterday I received a thick envelope from the Pulmonary Clinic at Vanderbilt. The people in research are amazing and take such good, good care of me - often jumping through unspoken hoops as my advocates. Mid-May I begin Phase 2a of FG-3019. I fall into the most uncanny niche of research medicine. My pulmonary specialist, Dr. Lisa Lancaster, and her team in research have observed I've been given the most unusual opportunity of choices.

Previously, only 36 subjects were enrolled in Cohort 2 of FG-3019. (This is when I met you, Michelle!) Twenty-seven subjects are expected to enroll in this extension study at about 15 centers in the US. There will be one patient from Vanderbilt... me. My research team has gone to bat for me guaranteeing my eligibility... holding a spot for me though the study started a while back. We wanted to finish the Bristol Myers Squibb study first, and then a 28 days non-drug period is required.

Yesterday, the gravity of this opportunity sunk deep, deep deep. And that's when I wept with gratitude. It's a 4-year study with true drug. It's not the silver bullet cure - but it might slow down the progression of my lung scarring. If a silver bullet cure should be discovered, then I switch up.

So, if you see me weeping, it's often for gratitude. I am one lucky woman!