Recordings of Life: First-Timer Guinea Pig

Last year, I got to know of this money making 'scheme' that involves no hard work, nothing illegal and might even be fun.

How's this for making money, all you have to do is stay overnight at a certain place, eat, sleep and let some docs check up on you from time to time. The whole remaining time you are allowed to spend as you like, online-ing, reading magazines, PS2 game console available, mahjong sets for you and your friends, all that and they PAY you, around RM300 for 48 hours!

This certain place is no other than a hospital teehee.

Basically, your work is to become a guinea pig. You have to take some pills, sleep there and have your blood drawn from time to time. Pills in question are safe to be consumed. The whole objective of this BE (Bio-equivalent) study is to assist in the research of generic pharmaceutical cures.

I received a call from Info Kinetics to undergo a study for Ketoconazole, a drug to treat fungal infections. I decided to give this a try, as I would not mind earning some cash.

I checked into Pantai Hospital close to 9pm. Once there, the research staff took my BP, weight etc and showed me to my room for the night. It's kinda small, 3 beds in a room. That night, I couldn't sleep at all, pillow was too hard, bed was too stiff.

In the middle of the night, one of the girls who I am sharing the room with suddenly woke with a start and started shrieking,"Mak! Tak pakai baju!" -__-

As I couldn't really sleep, I was up even before the morning call is sounded. Get this: at 4:45am. Weirdly I did not feel that sleepy, just tired with a buggy crick in my neck. Showered, luckily hospital has warm water and dressed. While I was combing my hair beside my bed, another one of the guinea pig, she's called DIYANA and she has curly unmanageable hair with weird skin, wanted to borrow my comb!!!!!

T__T

Generally, I don't really like sharing personal belongings, what more with strangers. Then she had this pimply face sumore.... I was pretty pai seh to not agree to lend her my comb, so I just said ok, and stuff the comb back into my duffel bag, with the handle just slightly peeking out, hoping that she won't be able to see it and if she asks me, then I could innocently say, oh it was there what, you din see meh?

BUT NO!!!!! She bloody took it! *grumble grumble grumble* And the horror doesn't end there! Later, as we were having tubes inserted into our arms, Diyana was right beside me, and I could hear the docs telling the nurses (about Diyana) that she has bad skin, flaky skin on her arms!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Making a mental note to dump the comb, a sudden too-late-idea came to me, shoulda told her I had dandruff myself! Hmmph.

Tube poking through skin:

You will have to have the thing in your arm for the whole day~12 hours. It's kinda uncomfortable, but you get used to it.

Then here comes the dramatic moment:

As I mentioned, I did not get enough sleep the night before. The same could not be said for the night before last night. I slept too much then, and throughout the whole of yesterday.

In short, I was feeling lethargic, lack of sleep and hunger pangs (we were supposed to fast from 10pm night till 11 morning).

After the tube was inserted, I grabbed a magazine and plonked onto a chair and started browsing. Slowly, I felt my heartbeat grew faster and faster. Then, I was feeling particularly nauseous and a sudden urge to vomit. I took a few deep breaths, telling myself to calm down. But it got worse, and then I can only see darkness, although I am still very much aware that my eyes are open. I feebly life an arm and called for a staff passing by, and later I can feel a number of hands bringing me to the ward bed.

Sigh. I call this bo su chui su.

The doctor said it could have been me feeling nervous and as I wasn't feeling good, they called me off the study. And then there I was, lying on the bed, this time REALLY sick.

Since I was called off the study, this very nice doctor, Kenneth was his name brought me oat and biscuits (yay!). After being hungry for so long, this was most delicious.