Saturday, January 08, 2005

Gunea pig's are us...

or rather me.

I decided to take part in a research study. I do this from time to time for extra money and to get free health care and have had good luck in the past. I've done studies on propecia (and lost my interest in sex during it), mouth wash (and got alot of dental work for free), cold germs (and found out i'm really allergic to a lot of things), etc.

So in my current study, the researchers are using my body to increase the dosage of an antibiotic that's already FDA approved to treat bacterial infections. What it intails is for me to get infused with the antibiotic for three days, with a broncoscopy after the third one. So for about two days time, I will get $500 with the added benefit of killing any nasty bacteria that's been bothering me.

Day one went well. The nurse had to stick me a second time because she couldn't get the IV into my vein the first time. Maybe it was a sign from above. If it was, I didn't listen. I need to check to make sure my answering machine is working.

About an hour into the infusion, I starting feeling funny in my stomach. I told the nurse and she said that it was a normal side-affect of the medicine. As soon as the second bag of antibiotic was in me, I nearly jumped out of bed to use the toilet. Lucky me, nothing came out, except air. I got back into bed.

At this point, I was under observation for 30 min to an hour. They wanted to make sure I was ok. It was during this time that I really had to run back to the toilet, and this time, everything came out.

This was the kinda shit that I felt like my whole soul was going out of my body through my ass. I stayed there for a while, good thing I brought my gameboy with me into the restroom.

My sister had called me early today, almost after I got the IV in me. My mom was in the hospital. It was a little hectic for a while after that. We were trying to figure out what was wrong with her and where to take her for treatment.

All we knew was that she was having pains in her lower ribs, near the lungs. She had complained that half her body was paralysed earlier this week, so we were afraid that she might be having a stroke. She had already had a minor stroke about a year ago and the doctors told us that she was a major stroke candidate now.

Our choices were to take her to Chinese Hospital or to UCSF. Chinese Hospital would be closer to where she is and of course, the staff there would be able to communicate with her. An added benefit we found out later, is that her friends ended up going to that same hospital. Sharing the same room with her so she didn't get too lonely. UCSF had more extensive services, can deal with more specialties and I had my connections here to make sure that she gets better service. Yes, I will use all my connections for my mom. Added benefit was that I was already at UCSF and could get things ready for her here.

We finally decided on Chinese Hospital, because it didn't seem like she needed the extra services at UCSF. We found out that an infection in her lungs have progressed into her ribs. That's what was causing her pain. It's kinda sucky to be thankful for this, because if it was a stroke, she wouldn't feel any pain. So this was actually the lesser of the two.

She ended up living in the hospital for three days and was released.

2 comments:

:: jozjozjoz :: said...

That antibiotic study sounded horrible.

Glad to hear your mom is at home now.

Unknown said...

Thanks Jozy.

Yeah, same here. She's definitely doing better. I was leaving my house on Sunday and she was pulling weeds outta my front lawn. I finally got her to stop.

You can take the girl off the farm, but you can't get the farm outta the girl. *sigh*