Immix’s lead cancer therapeutic is in clinical trials.

When I hear the words “clinical trial,” the first thing that immediately leaps into my head is the smell. More specifically, a memory of the smell of the hospital where my dad was being treated for cancer as a participant in a clinical trial until he passed away.

It’s a kind of sickly, sterile type of smell, with a faint perfume of hospital washed towels and linen, and cups and sinks washed with some kind of a generic antibacterial soap. Dark, dimly lit patient rooms, hushed whispering voices coming out of the halls late at night, half awake in cots by machines, IV drips, and hospital beds. Bad days, and then really bad days after chemo doses.

And hope.

And I remember fear. A lot of terrifying, constant, intense, sweat the bed all night, fear.

This is what I vividly remember when I think of clinical trials. That’s what I saw, what I remember. Yes, it is all enormously personal for me.

And I think about this whenever I think about Immix’s currently ongoing clinical trials. I think about how there is no time to waste. I make a conscious effort to try to remind myself that there are people, real people, sick and dying people, behind the report that comes in as an attachment in my morning email inbox. I try to remember that this is the focus, and that everything else is just bullshit and noise. I try to remind myself that there is a purpose, that I have a purpose, that it’s all very life or death.

The smell of it all.

And then, in this moment, I try to make better choices. A shift in my actions, career path, priorities, life, accordingly.

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