Under Quarantine – Part 2

Under Quarantine – Part 2

Hey guys, Im back. In my last post I filled you in on this Influenza vaccine study that I’m participating in. Today was check-in day for Part-B of the study where I will be exposed the the virus to test the success of the new vaccine i received a few months ago.

When I left you i was still waiting to get a few tests administered. Well it wasn’t till about 10 when i finally finished all my tests for the day….let me remind you…i checked in at 6am, didn’t finish all my tests and physicals till 10am! That’s a lot people.

1st test: Blood pressure – ten minutes to take my blood pressure because my heart rate was under 50 and my BP was so low…finally after repeating it two more times they concluded I’m just athletic LOL

2nd Test: Pulse Oximetry – Basically just checking my blood oxygen levels….this one was super quick and used a finger cuff like the ones we use with our training clients at The LAB.

3rd Test: Urine Sample – Had to provide a urine sample to confirm that i am indeed not on drugs or have any internal medical issues that would disqualify me from this phase

4th Test: ECG- Checking my heart rhythm for irregularities. Once again, issues were noted but after repeating twice they once again confirmed that I am simply in amazing shape!

5th test: Spirometry – This test is to measure lung function; How much and how fast I can move air out of my lungs. The doctor later told me, my results were fantastic. Healthy Lungs, check!

6th test : Blood test – this was your basic blood draw…only two vials today. They explained today was just a safety check, to make sure there is nothing in our blood indicating any current infections, issues etc that may put us at risk during the study. Passed

7th Test: Nasal Swab – Not really a test but more of a benchmark for our immune system. Got to say, if you never have to do this count yourself lucky. This SUCKED! its essentially a very long and flexible qtip they put deep into your nose…It felt like it was going into my head and touching my sinus cavity. Not really painful but extremely uncomfortable, unnerving and just plain weird. Nothing should go in your nose that far! But after talking to others, they said it wasnt bad for them…maybe it was the gal that did mine that was bad at it. Going to make a not of that and try to get someone diffenet if i have a choice. Unfortunately this is going to be done twice a day till the end of this 6 day confinement period..ugh…what i do for science.

After all that we finally got our room assignments and got to have breakfast:

Room – About 15’x10′ rooms with all the amenities: 13″ Sattelite TV, chair, hospital bed table, a TWIN bed (I’m 6’3″ and 210 pounds, FUN) an ECG machine, carboard trashcan, hospital comode with pee bottle lol, blankets that are closer to sheets in thickness and climate control locked to an arctic 60°. All that just for me; yes I’m living it up here!

Breakfast – Not sure that this qualifies as breakfast. If any of my clients ate this id make them do burpees till they are blue in the face….Freezer Aisle French toast (hard to call it french toast really), about 5oz of cubed melon (not really ripe), something that tasted vaguely like yogurt but with the consistency of melted ice cream and barely tasting like yogurt and 1/2 of a Nature valley granola bar. Pretty much nothing but processed carbs without the satisfaction. As a trainer its hard to eat that much crap especially when its not even tasty, what a waste of calories!

Its now about 8pm…we had a quick briefing this afternoon outlining the schedule for the next week, this is where i discovered the wonderful news of twice a day nasal swabs, as well as being told we will pretty much be in our rooms the entire time going forward….we will be eating in our rooms (food will be brought to us), all our procedures will be done in our own room, we even will have to pee in our room, using the “hospital comode” and bottle they left in each room. The only time we will really get to leave is to shower once a day or to go #2.

Well I’ve set the scene for all of you…this was day 1 in a nutshell. I’ll go into more detail tomorrow…clearly I will have plenty of time on my hands. They will be waking us up at 6am tomorrow, another early morning UGH!