Exploits of a Guinea Pig, Part 3

Well, today was a pretty hectic day, the busiest day that I'll have here by far. Here is a quick recap, in the military clock format that I have come to know and love:

0725 - Woken up by yet another burly nurse-man brandishing yet another needle in my face. I soon found out that this was a new kind of needle than the ones my arm had previously been introduced to. This was a 'cannula', which is kind of like a catheter. This was to be put in my arm and left there for seven hours in case my blood sugar dropped so low that I needed emergency infusions. Good morning to you too!

0800 - About fifteen different ECG pads were attached to my chestal area, ankles, and shoulders. These are like suction cups, except instead of using suction they use a type of adhesive that apparently makes you want to cry when you are ripping it off your skin, something I just recently found out. So I looked like a neat combination of these two pictures:












I think my resemblance to that guy on the right is really striking, don't you? I included the picture of the old guy because I like that he is being attended to by a hot schoolgirl. It gives a decent representation of the hot nurses here. Really, there are a lot of hotties. And everybody is really nice for the most part. I get a lot of conflicting emotions, simultaneously wanting to flirt with someone at the same time they are stabbing me in the arm. "So are you from owwwwwwwstin?"


0910 - Dosing! This is the big moment, folks. You know, where I get to take the mystery drug, the one with the mystery side effects on humans and all that jazz. It's like that one Dum-Dum flavor with the question mark on it, except it's a bunch of liquid in a little brown jar, and instead of tasting good it tastes like hamster urine, and instead of being a lollipop it's....a fucking mystery drug. They told us before we drank this stuff that it might not be very pleasant, but if it was, they "didn't want to know about it." Nice. Presumably this is so subjects who get the placebo won't catch on when you are making a throw-up face and theirs tastes like Hawaiian Punch. Whatever, I chugged my oily concoction down like a champ. Then they re-filled the jar with water, because I guess I looked like I wanted to taste it all over again, and that went down the hatch too. I sure as hell wasn't going to show weakness in front of these wannabe nurses.


0930-1440 - For the next seven hours my procedural routine followed this schedule:

• Sit upright for 6 minutes
• Vital signs (blood pressure, pulse)
• Blood draw
• Finger prick
• Lay flat on my back for 15 minutes
• ECG reading
• wait twenty minutes and repeat

It probably sounds worse than it actually was. I mean it wasn't a walk in the park, but I was so groggy that it went by pretty quick (I have been going to bed around 4am for the last month, so I stayed up way past our required midnight 'bedtime' , hidden under my blanket reading Me Talk Pretty One Day with my headlamp. It was fun, I felt like I was ten years old again.)
You just get used to the routine of it all. Plus there is always that dollar sign in the back of your head, pushing you onward with happy thoughts.

Some other moments worth noting:

• At one point I was interrupted from my book by a girl saying "okay, time for your blood draw," and when I looked up I was delighted/frightened to see the really cute girl from yesterday who made that poor old man bleed everywhere. She was as bad as I thought, and caused me much more pain than anyone else. But her name is Kimberly, and now we are friends. Ya gotta look on the bright side of life, ya know?
• Another girl came by, Glinda, who was pretty hot and Mexican although you probably didn't guess either of those things from her name. We got to talking and I asked her if she was in medical school or what, since I (foolishly) assumed that most of these technicians were in nursing school or premed or something like that. Her answer scared me more than anything else I had seen, heard, or felt all day. "Um, no, I worked at McDonalds' before I worked here. This is my third week!" Yikes. Thank god she was just getting my blood pressure.
• I have become friends with a guy with 1.5 arms. Yeah, sure, it makes for some freaky moments, like when he pointed out the needle marks on his whole arm with his stub, but overall he is one of the more normal people in here. Just a regular college dude going to Arizona State with one and a half arms. I'm hoping that we'll be good enough friends by the end of the study that I can ask him what happened.
• The guy in the bed next to me is SO OBNOXIOUS. He is one of those overly social antisocial types. If that makes sense. Absolutely no conversational skills, and yet he will not shut the fuck up. He constantly bitches about not being able to find someone to play Risk with. Yes, he brought Risk. I'm sorry, but I had to vent, I've been holding it in all god damn day.
• It is really amazing how much one person pees in a day. I never thought about it much before, but now that I have to keep my daily urine in a big canteen, it has been on my mind. The overall volume is really impressive. Try it, you'll see what I mean.
• Myspace drama is everywhere! That is all anybody does here, check myspace. Earlier today it was just me and this girl Shanonda in the computer labs. Well, she found out that her bf had been making some 'lewd' comments on other shorty's profiles. Busted! Well you better believe Shanonda called him up right then and there and chewed his ass out big time (and I was in on the whole thing!). Darnell, why would you post "Yeah, that's my way!" on a topless picture of your ex-girlfriend, especially when she is in your top 8 and easily accessed by your current gf?! What is this, amateur hour?