I’ve been hyper-productive lately but tonight I just sat on my fat ass and did nothing.
The plan was to fill out the insurance forms for my stolen car and then go to the gym.
The insurance forms were really fucking long and asking for an insane amount of information that I didn’t have, so I said fuck it.
Plus I can’t go to the gym cause I’m volunteering for an AIDS vaccine clinical trial and they said my creatine levels were too high, so not only do I not get to go to the gym, but I gotta get up a 7:30am tomorrow and have more blood drawn.
The conversation was kinda spooky. The doctor called me and starts talking about my creatine levels. He asked if I work out and I said yes. He asked if I suffered from chest pains and I said no. Then he asked if I had a personal physician. I said no, and he seemed adamant about getting me back into his office right away.
I’m half expecting him to tell me that I’m a victim of the five-point exploding heart technique and I won’t live long enough to make it to the door of his office.
I hope nothing is wrong and I make it into the trial. I used to be in ACT UP and a volunteer with The St. Louis Effort for AIDS and Food Outreach, but I haven’t done any AIDS service work in maybe ten years. This is a small way to do something for the cause. When they have a vaccine, I’d like to feel that in some insignificant-never-studied-science-past-AP Biology-junior-year-in-high-school sort of way that I was part of it.
The irony is that if I don’t get the placebo, the experimental vaccine will make me more vulnerable to HIV if I’m exposed, and quicker to get full tilt AIDS if infected. So, I’d kinda be taking one for the team.
wow, go you
I was wondering how the trial for the vaccine worked?
btw. creatinine levels are an indicator of kidney function, its a break down of creatine, which is excreted by the muscles. creatine is in the body naturally but people also use it as a performance enhancer. So likely the doctor is trying to figure out if you’ve been using creatine, or if he should be concerned about your kidneys.
Oh my…
Be careful while you’re out there saving the world, David. There’s millions of us and only one of you. ((HUGS))
Don’t Die
Better to live quietly for a cause than to die violently.
Re: Oh my…
Thanks.
Re: wow, go you
As I understand it, they isolate a protein that appears in the virus and that becomes the basis of the vaccine.
The vaccine tricks your immune system into thinking it has the virus and developing anitbodies to the virus.
One of the drawbacks to being in the study is that once your body starts producing antibodies to HIV, you’ll test positve on a conventional AIDS test.
Re: wow, go you
Why then does it make you more vulnerable to the disease if exposed and more rapid progression? if its a vaccine you’d think that would not be the case?
And…silly question but since you probably aren’t going to go all kinds of unsafe, how will they know it works?
Re: wow, go you
It works to the degree that their testing for if I build up anti-bodies to HIV.
I can’t answer your first question.