Well, this is easy. Big deal clinical trial. Experimental drug. Forty pages of warnings and explanations, initialed and signed. Two days in the hospital. Blood tests every two hours. Vital signs, doctors going in and out.

Can’t be too careful. Put me in the hospital because there is less chance of side effects if you don’t get a good night’s sleep. Where was sleep deprivation in the consent form?

Checked in the night before and immediately got an I-V strapped to my forearm. Seven different kinds of tape, ranging from “welded to hair” to “stitched on” with a final layer of “implanted.” But that wouldn’t be a problem for two and a half days. It was the saline solution they pumped into me by the kegful that was an immediate problem. Just in case a nurse forgot to come by and wake me the moment I closed my eyes, the salt water filling my bladder would do the same thing.

The blood draws started sometime before dawn. Sometime way before dawn. At least it was another excuse for being awake.

The hospital is very pleasant, if you’re passing by. Huge atrium, wood floors, marble, fake palm trees two stories high, skylights washing the hallways in natural light.

Then you step into the room. Bathed in beige, fluorescent light washing over the crisp white sheets and paper thin blankets, with a curtain running down the middle to shield me from the angry old man in the other bed – the one by the window. Why is he angry, he’s got the window? On my side, there’s almost room for a chair at the foot of the bed.

Fortunately I wasn’t sick and as long as I was in the neighborhood in time for the blood draws no one really cared where I was the rest of the time. So Cheryl, my I-V pole and I walked the halls, sat in the pleasant parts and read.

In the morning, the study director came with The Pill. This is what I had signed up for. Small dose to begin with. Swallowed it and waited. Nothing happened. An hour, two hours, three. Nothing. All day, all night.

The next day, same thing.

The lights came on at 5:30 when the woman from the lab walked in with a cart and cheerily announced she was here to get blood. Apparently blood is at its optimum best when it’s still asleep. Another woman with another cart went to the angry old man and woke him up. That didn’t go well.

“What time is it?” “5:30.” “You’re not supposed to be here before 7:30.” “No, I have to get it now before the doctor comes.” “Well, you can’t have it.”

So she left. He’s my hero. More remarkable, she didn’t come back. Not that I blame her; who wants to deal with that? And maybe just as interesting, later in the morning he didn’t remember it at all. I’m not sure, but that may have something to do with why he was there in the first place. That, and that he’s angry. And old.

Anyway, after the wakeup call I only had to wait three hours for breakfast. So I got up, showered, got dressed and left. I would have gotten a lot farther if it hadn’t been for my friendly I-V pole. They stare at you at Starbucks if you walk in with one of those. So I just roamed the hall.

Then after breakfast they came with The Pill again. The study director and two nurses crowded in next to my bed to watch me swallow it. This one was twice as big as the first day’s. When I didn’t turn green or orange and projectile vomit, they looked at each other a little disappointed, shrugged and left. Until the next blood test. And the one after that.

And so it went. The third day they gave me The Pill, ripped the seven layers of tape from my arm and tossed me out.

I go back to the clinic almost every day, sometimes twice a day for a blood test.

It’s been a week now, the dosage has gone from 20 to 100 on its way to 400 and I don’t have as much as a hangnail. So much for side effects.

And the trial goes on, one pill a day for several more months, maybe as long as two years. Truth is, it’s not as though nothing has happened. After a week, my white blood cell count is normal.

First time in three years.