A Trial Neurotic

In a grand salute to my fellow neurotics, I proved today that neurosis can trump label warnings every time.

I've had the clinical trial drug in my possession since Friday. It has instructions in 47 languages (a slight -- and I do mean slight - exaggeration). I had to wait until today to swallow the first one so that I would have the new trio of drugs that accompany it. I opened up a spreadsheet to make sure I didn't undermine the entire pharmaceutical industry by screwing up the frequency, dosage, or food instructions.

I made note of all the side-effects that should send me running to the doctor from all four medications. I also glanced over the list of 60-plus side-effects that should send me running to the nearest bathroom but don't require an office visit. Since the majority needed to be taken twice a day - with food - I made a small lunch and laid out the very colorful pills (lots of orange this time). I decided to eat half the food, pop the pills, and then finish the food - just to be overly literal. Not before food, not after food, with food. I didn't crush or chew, like the label admonished. I drank water or milk, as instructed.

I took one bite of lunch and barfed. And I hadn't yet swallowed a pill. I was having side-effects without taking the pills. I wondered if I would get the positive benefits the same way. Just read a lot, vomit, and watch my health improve. In full-blown neurotic dither, I swallowed the pills at the half-way point of the meal and watched the little clock on the computer to see how long it would take for me to have discernable side-effects - as a result of the medicine.

To pass the time, I read an online article about the clinical trial drug. Apparently, if the drug works as it's designed to, I should stay away from mosquitoes because its miracle method makes me susceptible to West Nile Virus - the one virus I haven't yet had. I live in Kansas. This is where God created mosquitoes. They're not the size of birds, like in Florida. But they bite. I buy a summer wardrobe anually that goes well with large red welts. I have always been a mosquito magnet. Now I get to invest in a full-body mosquito net that won't go with anything from last year.

I'm coming up on the one-hour mark and my head is filling with snot. That's a side-effect of at least one of the drugs. Rash, dementia, stroke, diarrhea, and loss of limbs can't be far behind. We'll keep you posted.

In the event we don't, would someone please call Pfizer and tell them another one bit the dust?

Guinea Pigs And Plain Ol' Pigs

Whoops! Look like we missed a day or so of posting random thoughts. That's the life of a guinea pig for you. We were decidedly perplexed upon learning of our acceptance into the clinical trial for the experimental drug, Maraviroc, yesterday. It had been unlikely from the beginning that our particular virus would be susceptible to it. And, frankly, we're not sure just how excited one should get about swallowing pills with yet-to-be-determined effects.

Then again, we swallowed lots of pills in dark bars in the 80's that could have been anything from Certs to Cyanide. So who are we kidding?

The specialist mentioned during our consultation over The Headache of 2007 that it would take a few days for test results to come back. It's been 8 days. We still have the headache (going into month #3), and no test results. If the man stood next to Tom Cruise, we wouldn't realize Tom Cruise was in the room. He's that good looking. So rather than bitch, we've been taking our Vicodin and having inappropriate thoughts about the man who put a foot-long Q-tip in our ear.

Three years ago, we let him straighten the septum, drill out the sinuses and take out some bones that we didn't realize were Just For Show. We realized what the big deal was over nasal breathing afterward. See...we hadn't done that before. Ever. The man is a god. And a good doctor, to boot. If we had fewer scruples, we'd shove things up our nose on a weekly basis just to see him regularly. You do that sort of thing for people you like. That's called establishing rapport".

Dick Cheney was dispatched to the Middle East this week to establish rapport in that area. That's what our newspaper said, "Cheney Seeks Rapport In Iraq". We called the Editor to make sure there hadn't been a typo: "Clooney" or "Sacks" or "Report" or "Colorado Springs", maybe. Nope. Sure enough, Our Only Vice-President, charmer that he is, was sent by Our Only President on a surprise good-will mission to Iraq. The surprise is not that he went. It's that anyone thought he was capable of good will. This is the guy who bit Matt Lauer's leg off in an interview for wishing him well in his pending grandpa-hood. Good will is not in his arsenal.

We were going to write something mildly humorous and scathing about sending people who have even less good will capacity than Cheney. But Leona Helmsley and Satan were all we came up with. It's hard to stretch that into a full paragraph. Looks like Cheney is treading into guinea pig waters himself. Maybe he's trying on a new leaf in his old age: niceness. Or humanity, perhaps. This kind of thing is catching in a syrupy Pay It Forward sort of way.

Now, Lindsay Lohan has been dispatched to high schools to seek sobriety among alcoholic teens. Paris Hilton has been dispatched to Driver's Ed to help 14 year-olds learn how to beat a bum DUI rap. O.J. will be offering marriage tips. Oprah will show us how to do the Virgin Islands on $10,000 a day. And John Edwards is the new spokesperson for SuperCuts.

Sometimes irony is funny. Sometimes it just reveals stupidity. Playing around with a new gig in hopes of stumbling on solutions is admirable. Throwing gasoline on the fire in your living room is not. Throwing it on the fire in someone else's living room is less so.

See the clock at the right of this screen and pray we don't all die of "rapport".