Sunday, June 8, 2014

Another study

*** I just discovered this still sitting in my drafts folder! Should've posted it last week! ***


One of the things about seeing doctors up at Stanford is that you're asked to participate in a bunch of studies, all of which we've gladly said yes to. We figure parents participating before us have only helped our situation, so it's the least we can do to help others after us.

Anyway, one study is being conducted by UC Berkeley, to see if there are any environmental or genetic connections to leukemia (to date, causes of leukemia are still unknown). So, I sat through a pretty detailed and lengthy phone interview a week or two ago, where they asked me crazy questions like, did you have the flu or a cold 3 months before you were pregnant with Callum? Did you have the flu or a cold during your pregnancy with Callum? From Callum's birth to March 12, 2014, did he have any X-rays of any kind? (And then when you answer yes, they go through a detailed series of questions on the types of X-rays across his entire body). Throughout the entire interview I kept thinking man, thank goodness he's only 4 years old. I would have a lot more "I don't know" answers if he was any older! ;-)

So the second part of the study is collection of both mine and Callum's saliva, to run DNA/genetic tests I guess. So he and I had fun spitting into a little vial this afternoon, and now our spit is in a red "WARNING! BIOHAZARD!" bag, bring shipped back to their labs for study. :)

(TMI, but dang it's hard to come up with enough spit for their seemingly tiny little kits!! I can't imagine any kid younger than Callum would be able to do that.) :(

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