It's been a very long day, but that's because I had a very short night. I'm not sleeping well these days... here or on the mountain I'm not sleeping well and I don't know why. I've had the bragging rights to, "I sleep like death" for many years, so I don't know why insomnia has started to visit every so often.

Early this morning I had to be at Vandy for a clinical trial infusion. (I was very intentional about making sure my sons were in town to witness the benign-ness of this procedure. I get a private room, TV, private nurse, TV, private bathroom, TV, and any meal I want of any quantity I want, and TV.) I look forward to these appointments.

Some of you might not know that I haven't paid for commercial TV for quite a few years. Today, I watched Cake Wars (or something stupid like that) and loved every decadent, imbecilic moment. Though I enjoy the TV element of my clinical trials, my TV watching also validates my refusal to pay insane amounts of money to watch imbecilic shows like Cake Wars... or whatever it was called.

After my infusion, I dashed (exaggeration) to the Pulmonary Clinic at Vanderbilt for the IPF Support Group's monthly meeting for lunch and a presentation. This month Wendi (medical person who is pretty much in charge of all clinical trials at Vandy) gave a presentation with an overview of past, present, and future clinical trials at Vanderbilt Medical.

[BTW, for all of you people who talk it up about Vanderbilt being an impossible maze of streets and corridors... I now qualify as a docent. Seriously. Believe it.]

Early into Wendi's presentation I asked a fairly basic question about clinical trials. My question addressed the use of lab animals for research. (Louise, do not *bleeping* de-friend me again. *smiling*)

With IPF, lab situations have to be artificially concocted because THERE IS ONLY ONE OTHER ANIMAL on the entire planet Earth that naturally develops IPF and this animal's gestation/lifespan isn't doable for research. This is why IPF is artificially created in lab animals for research purposes.

Okay. I'm going to fast-forward and give you the punch line: Westies.

*****

Here at Hillsboro House where I live, my landlady has two Westies. One is named Bobby and he's especially fond of me and this has mightily perplexed my landlady. Whenever Bobby sees me, he makes a beeline for me and cozies up to my feet or leans against my legs. He has become my unlikely and inexplicable guardian. My landlady and I have laughed about this and posited that he must know that I'm sick because studies have shown that animals are intuitive about illness. But now we think it's more than that. He's a Westie... the only animal on earth that can ever possibly have IPF - like me.

Does this not give you amazing shivers and gratefully smack of faith and God and mysticism and Amens?

So, that has been my amazing and wonderful day.

Unfortunately, I require an x-ray tomorrow. Something is going on and it needs to be checked out. I'll give you an update tomorrow or have Bobby contact you. He'll most likely know the scoop before any of us, anyway.





P.S. There really and truly was a reason I posted my first journal entry for Morocco. I have a follow-up post I still need to gather my words for. (And yes. I just ended that sentence with a preposition.)