“Every instinct in my body said ‘You’ll have your whole lifetime to cry for yourself. At this exact moment, you put your feelings and sadness aside. This isn’t about you. This is about Maxwell. And you fight like the third monkey on the loading deck to Noah’s Ark, and it’s starting to rain.’”

Amber’s goal was pressing, but she was progressing. The trials on the engineered mice were designed and about to be set into motion. This was the beginning of 2020 though and a momentous shift took place in the world over these months. In the process of a worldwide set of shut downs due to safety concerns over the coronavirus, most medical research that was not seeking a treatment or vaccine for the pandemic has been suspended.  

While restrictions buy time for pandemic treatment to develop, it’s costing Amber, who doesn’t have any to spare. Her son’s disease will progress as time goes on.

  “I never anticipated or thought something like this could happen, but also it was a state of devastation like I felt when Maxwell was originally diagnosed that lightning hit us. The unthinkable happened. And here, lightning has hit again. A black swan event for the world that no one could have anticipated.” – Amber