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Showing posts from November, 2013

Trip to Washington, DC - Tips from a Canadian

Last week we travelled to the Washington DC area from Southern Ontario, Canada.  We crossed the border in Buffalo, NY.  Here are my tips and tricks: 1) Take the scenic highways.   We took scenic highways on the way down, and some of the interstate highways on the way home.  The scenic highways, particularly those in Pennsylvania were absolutely gorgeous.  Travelling through the mountains is a must!  However, I wouldn't advise this trip for winter, as the slopes on some of the roads were crazy steep, and very well could be treacherous for inexperienced drivers in the winter.  2) Stay outside of DC.   Accomodation within DC is extremely expensive, and still not cheap on the outskirts.  We stayed in Silver Springs one night, and in Bethesda for three nights.  Both are on the metro (subway) line, which makes downtown DC easily accessible.  We used Hotwire to book our hotels. 3) Take the Metro (Subway).   Don't attempt driving to any of the tourist sites.  Traffic is ridiculou

Participating in Research Study at NIH for Urea Cycle Disorders

Note: i will add in some pictures later. My phone hasn't done a Google back up of the pictures I've taken yet. Friday, November 8th would be our son Kyles second birthday. While being aggressively treated for Ornithine Transcarbamylase Deficiency (OTC Deficiency), a urea cycle disorder, with the hopes of having him obtaining a liver transplant, he acquired an E Coli infection at the hospital. The infection was not caught in time, and in doing the treatment for the OTC, dialysis was performed, which in turn spread the infection throughout the entire body. Last year at this time, we had a follow up appointment at the hospital. I'm hopeful that in my participating, new things will be learned that will help future generations. This year, at this same time, I am at the National Institute of Health (NIH), in the United States, participating as a research subject in a study called MINI. It stands for Metabolism, Infection and Immunity in Inborn Errors of Metabolism. They had s