One of the things that jury duty disrupted was my regular appointment with the medical study doctor. I was supposed to visit on Thursday at 3:30pm, but I was still downtown until 5pm or something. Friday I got out in time to squeeze in a visit to the doctor before YouthQuake.
This visit was different for a few reasons:
1. It had been two weeks since my previous visit. I had been coming once a week, but I’m to the twice-a-week stage now.
2. When he asked his first question, “Have you had any new rashes?”, my answer was “yes”. It was interesting to see his reaction. He looked a little concerned. He asked me a whole bunch of follow-up questions, including, “Any skin detachment?” Eeeewww! My rash cosisted of some itchy spots on my feet when I first arrived in Nebraska for Christmas. They disappeared four days after appearing. Still, he was going to send all the information to the pharmaceutical company.
3. My answers to some of the questions were different. Not being able to get these dang papers graded was of particular interest to him. My answers were different enough that he decided I was experiencing some sort of side-effect. He decided to cut me back to two pills per day.
I started my two-a-day regimen on Saturday. It’s hard to tell if anything has changed. I haven’t had much time to grade. When I got home yesterday, I wrote a post, slept a little, ate a little, and watched “The Nativity Story”. The eighth graders haven’t finished it from when I was gone last week, and I haven’t seen it in a year, so I thought I should watch it. I didn’t finish my grading.
Grades are due on Wednesday, so I’ll have plenty of motivation to stay after school and work today. Here’s hoping I get lots done!
You’re so brave to stick an unknown substance in your body that may cause rashes and may make it difficult to do your normal work… !
At this point, the only thing that’s keeping me doing this is so that other people don’t. This is the first time this medicine has been used for S.A.D. I don’t think the benefits outweigh the side effects. I want to stick it out for the rest of the study so my information will be added to the data.
Yay for Brad – the Medical Mystery Man! Your life is so exciting to us! I’m so thrilled that I was there for the rash! Now when they do your life story on Medical Mysteries, I can be one of the people who sits, with weepy eyes, and testifies about how scary the whole thing was.
What? No picture of the rash? I would think you’d be all over that photo. opportunity … it’s medical, it’s your feet … plus the doctor could have sent it to the drug company & your feet would be published nationwide!!
And don’t worry … I don’t think skin can really just fall off … but if I find your face in the hall, I promise to give it back.
HA! Good one, Peggy…but just his face, right? Not like if you found a finger or an elbow in the hall, eh? I mean, you might keep those in a jar on your desk, I reckon…?
So, now that I’m teaching 6th grade science again (it’s deja vu all over again – I’m having a flash back to the ’80’s here), maybe I could use those jars of pickled body parts somehow. Hmmm.
“Oh, BRAAAAA – AAAAD!”