It is only the second day of my 18-day long medical trial, and I already feel like a dried up guinea pig! I feel lucky though, that I made the cut, as two people had to leave this morning since the trial only needed 8 out of the 10 people that I had the pleasure of being "locked in" with yesterday.
Get ready to get up close and personal with me in this post, there will be urine, there will be blood - and a bit of number two if you can believe it! You have been warned.
I will not get too technical, but maybe a bit of explaining of medical trials are in order. I am doing a medical trial here in England, to hopefully make myself 2300 £ to cover a few months of no work. I have been admitted to a facility that performs these trials for various medical companies. It is so-called phase 1 trials, where medicine is being tested in healthy adults, not patients, to test how the drug is being processed in the body, how it interacts with food, and what side effects may arise. A lot of the studies test medicine that has already been approved for the market but needs a bit of tweaking of the composition.
The study I am doing now is testing a drug that will help treat inflammatory diseases. It is a drug that has not been tested un humans before, except for a few people. So it was with a little bit of trepidation that I went for it, but as my partner says, if anything was wrong they would not be allowed to continue. One of the guys who is also doing this study compared the risk of anything dire happening with that of being in an airplane crash. So, I am really not too worried.
You start your journey by going to a screening test 3-4 weeks before the actual trial. Here they inform you about why and how the study is run, and make sure you know what you are in for. After that, they run a lot of health checks to see if you are fit and matches their criteria. A few days later they will let you know if you can participate, and you can start planning what to pack and what tv series to binge!
I was admitted yesterday morning, but only today I found out if I was gonna be able to continue on the trial - a.k.a. earn the money I was hoping for! Most often they admit more volunteers than they need, in case anybody has any issues and has to leave the study. We where 10 people. Now we are 8. It felt a bit like an eight-chair challenge out of X-Factor! Waiting to see if your urine- and blood samples are gonna make the cut!! And then when they tell you that you are in, you feel all happy but also really bad for the other guys that now have to find their way home and rewire their brain to the new reality of not being stuck in a hospital ward for 18 days...
So I am in for the long haul. That means daily dosing with a pill every morning, surrounded by a plethora of tests and restrictions on food and drink. That is the biggest challenge. I have to fast for at least ten hours before dosing, and can't eat until four hours after dosing. Today I fasted for 16 hours, and my body and mind are so far not big fans. I am very hungry of course, which results in a slight headache and a bit of dizziness. I can't blame it on the drugs, this is just me really needing my big breakfast to function. I hope I get used to it and feel more alert and energetic during the day, as I have plenty of projects to work on in here. That is part of the beauty of this whole medical trial thing, that you have so much free time on your hands, and I would like to put it to good use.
For this trial, on top of several blood samples, they need all of your urine, and at least one fecal sample pr. day! Yep, I get to pee in a bottle for 18 days, and I tell you - my dear friends, who I can tell anything ;) -I pee a lot. And I have to ask for "permission" every time as they lock the bathroom door so nobody can sneak out of sampling. And yes, they need to see your poop as well, so you really get to know yourself and your bathroom habits :)
So, I am a really great producer of urine samples. But apparently, I am not such a great guinea pig for blood sampling. The nurses are having a hard time luring a good vein to the surface, and when they do get a needle in there, it seems to divert my blood elsewhere and refuses to spit anything out faster than a tiny drip....drip.....drip..... For all these blood samples you get fitted with a canula(a plastic tube that stays in the vein for easy access), but mine had to be fitted three times before they found a vein that would give it up more than once. Now I have a special one in my forearm, but they still need to push and pull to get anything out of me. I try to keep plenty hydrated, but I suspect that all that water goes straight to my bladder. Lucky me. More urine samples :)
Now I will get on with some serious reading and some lazy tv watching. Any good suggestions?!
Enjoy the nice view of me and my cannula and dried up veins, working away on my steemit mastery, while resting in a nice hospital bed.
