eric
07-07-2005, 06:42 PM
Hi all,
Well Caryn got her first of 6 vaccines in the UWA trial and I wanted to quickly share our experience as promised. The people there are absolutely wonderful. They seem to really care and appreciate their patients and have great pride in their program, despite the negative press that vaccines seem to get for breast cancer. I apologize for not having pictures of the staff but the camera I brought uses a rechargeable battery and I forgot the charger! Pics will be taken on the next trip.
The group that took care of my wife consisted of Dr. Webster, Doreen Higgins and Erlynn (? spelling). Dr. Disis also stopped by to say hello and introduce herself. In all, they have a staff of about 30 which includes the people in the research facility. They encourage patients to visit the facility (another building) to give these people an opportunity to meet the patients. According to Dr Webster and Dr Disis the people in the labs really get excited when they have visitors.
As far as the trial that my wife is in (118), they have over 19 people (all stage 4) enrolled and have not seen any recurrances in 18 months! No side effets of any consequence to mention, although my wife did have terrible stomach cramps about 3 hours after the vaccine. They lasted for about an hour and our feeling was that it was probably more related to the way she was feeling prior to the vaccine. She seemed to have caught a mild bug from my son and the antibiotic she was on might have played a role as well.
The day started out with a lengthy discussion of the trial to make sure that Caryn understood everything. She then had a chest x-ray, ekg, physical and review of medical history before having a bunch of blood drawn. The blood is used to establish a baseline to measure changes in her future immune responses as a result of the vaccines. She then had a tetanus shot and the vaccine itself which consisted of 3 shots (only because the volume could not fit into one syringe). Outside of the tetanus shot, which was injected into her thigh muscle, it was pretty easy (easy for me to say!). After them observing her for 60 minutes we were free to go.
I hope this helped and and I welcome any questions from anyone that might be considering this trial.
Best to all,
Eric
Well Caryn got her first of 6 vaccines in the UWA trial and I wanted to quickly share our experience as promised. The people there are absolutely wonderful. They seem to really care and appreciate their patients and have great pride in their program, despite the negative press that vaccines seem to get for breast cancer. I apologize for not having pictures of the staff but the camera I brought uses a rechargeable battery and I forgot the charger! Pics will be taken on the next trip.
The group that took care of my wife consisted of Dr. Webster, Doreen Higgins and Erlynn (? spelling). Dr. Disis also stopped by to say hello and introduce herself. In all, they have a staff of about 30 which includes the people in the research facility. They encourage patients to visit the facility (another building) to give these people an opportunity to meet the patients. According to Dr Webster and Dr Disis the people in the labs really get excited when they have visitors.
As far as the trial that my wife is in (118), they have over 19 people (all stage 4) enrolled and have not seen any recurrances in 18 months! No side effets of any consequence to mention, although my wife did have terrible stomach cramps about 3 hours after the vaccine. They lasted for about an hour and our feeling was that it was probably more related to the way she was feeling prior to the vaccine. She seemed to have caught a mild bug from my son and the antibiotic she was on might have played a role as well.
The day started out with a lengthy discussion of the trial to make sure that Caryn understood everything. She then had a chest x-ray, ekg, physical and review of medical history before having a bunch of blood drawn. The blood is used to establish a baseline to measure changes in her future immune responses as a result of the vaccines. She then had a tetanus shot and the vaccine itself which consisted of 3 shots (only because the volume could not fit into one syringe). Outside of the tetanus shot, which was injected into her thigh muscle, it was pretty easy (easy for me to say!). After them observing her for 60 minutes we were free to go.
I hope this helped and and I welcome any questions from anyone that might be considering this trial.
Best to all,
Eric