Another crazy week as we move closer to finishing the installation of all the equipment, paddle wheels, and blowers on module 1 and get ready to start stocking our first ponds within the next 30 days.
We have already started installation of module 2 and are pretty confident we will have both modules up and operating (and stocked) by late summer, early fall.
As we move forward to increase production by building additional production modules, these first two modules and all the supporting infrastructure they required should prove to have been the most difficult and the most expensive. As the old adage goes, "learning isn't cheap".
The "winter that refuses to leave" has put us at least 3 months behind from where we wanted to be at this time.
That said, the water temperatures are rising in the bay and ambient air temperatures are rising so we should have the optimum environmental conditions we want as we begin to bring in the first water for the ponds.
Modules 3 and 4 here in Texas should go up much faster and with a significant reduction in cost.
The company web site is being handled by professionals now so for details on our progress you can go to: globalbluetechnologies.com
On a much more important front, conditions for a potential storm are gathering between "Team Lori" and United Health Care (UHC).
"Team Lori", is the moniker we use for all of the individuals (human and four-legged), that spend countless hours every day working around the clock to save Lori's life from this metastatic "TNBC" she has been battling for 37 months.
(Above is Sophie and a few of the other poodles with their "Team Lori" t-shirts, which they wear on chemo day.)
As all of you have read, under the treatment of Dr. Joyce O'Shaugnessy and her incredible team at Baylor Cancer Center in Dallas, Texas, Lori has seen dramatic improvement in halting the spread of her cancer.
Several months ago when the ONT-10 vaccine trial Lori was in failed to halt the progression of the cancer in her brain as well as the cancer tumor in her liver and kidneys, Dr. O'Shaugnessy developed an experimental combination of chemo drugs combining Zoloda, Halaven, and Avastin, and started Lori on it.
At first Lori's tumor markers jumped upwards but Dr. O'Shaugnessy was pretty confident that was the new chemo combo bursting tumors.
Since then for the past several months Lori's tumor markers have gone down and down dramatically. They had gone as high as 80 but today in Dallas at Baylor her new tests showed a third straight (another 15 points down) drop in her tumor markers which are now down to a rating of 50 and her MRI showed no progression in her brain.
The chemo cocktail is working and for the first time in 2 years Lori's cancer is being driven back. (And yes, prayer does work).
No this is not a cure, but it is an extension of her life and is buying her time to hopefully get her into a state of remission and maybe, (with enough prayer) and under the genius of Dr. O'Shaugnessy buy her time for a new clinical trials in immuno-therapy to emerge.
This is not only incredible miraculous news for Lori and her team but this could hold promise for tens of thousands of woman who have to face the deadly form of breast cancer called triple negative and nicknamed the "beast".
Simply put this gives Lori and others like her - HOPE.
So, why is a storm brewing?
Because "United Health Care Insurance Company" to whom (or is it to "who") we have paid expensive monthly premiums for years and years, as of a month ago started denying payment for Lori's avastin.
Without that insurance coverage this means an "out of pocket" cost of about $30,000 a month for each treatment. And as it is the avastin in combination with the other two drugs that has seen Lori actually begin to beat this very aggressive metastatic demon cancer, not providing her the avastin is tantamount to a death sentence.
Dr. O'Shaugnessy has appealed to the UHC board and we are awaiting their decision.
Obviously we and everyone who is aware of Lori's battle is praying that UHC will do the decent, ethical, and right thing, and reverse their decision and continue to cover Lori's current treatment.
If not, I promise everyone the storm will come.
I have no idea how other people in similar situations deal with this kind of blow.
That said, the effort that will be made to get Lori's coverage reinstated, to have UHC continue to pay so Lori can use Avastin in concert with Halaven and Zoloda, (which hopefully will be a combination that other women with "tnbc" metastasis can obtain and have insurance coverage for as well), will become a campaign that will make the siege of Carthage by Hannibal look like a Saturday night "bingo" game.
Stay tuned.
On a more positive and happier note, Charm my Arabian mare that I was blessed to have come into my life when she was six months old and I was still living in Michigan, turned 29 this past March.
Here she is enjoying the second week of spring in Maryland.
Yes, I said the second week of spring.
This has truly been the "winter that refuses to leave".
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