As you know, earlier this week Rilley's vaccine was granted approval to be shipped to Canada. Despite the fact that this regulartory red tape forced us to delay his first treatment by a week, Dr. Ohlfest didn't see this as a serious matter. We had an appointment with Dr. Ewing booked for 5:20pm today. Just prior to 4pm her office called to say that they hadn't received the shipment yet. Sara called FedEx to find out what was going on. As it turns out, despite all the efforts by Dr. Ewing here in Georgetown and Jessica at the University of Minnesota to ensure that all the proper paperwork had been completed, Canadian Border Services Agency (Canada Customs) have decided not to release his vaccine shipment! According to them, a commercial invoice is missing, which the University insists was included.
Ok, so it's a paperwork snag...normally, not a big deal. Just get it straightened out and all is well, right? Well in this case, any delay can become disasterous. The vaccine is packed in enough dry ice to keep it viable for 3 days. However, it's been in transit since yesterday morning. FedEx wanted some extra time to allow for the inclement weather in Minneapolis and the American Thanksgiving. So the transportation time has used up two of the three days and as of this evening we weren't able to get it released from Customs. This means that if we are unsuccessful in having customs release the vaccine tomorrow it will most likely spoil and another one won't be ready for two weeks. This can't possibly be good for the success of his treatment.
Hopefully tomorrow will bring better news. So we are keeping our fingers crossed again!
