Word Count: 235
Tell your doctor if you experience hair loss, dizziness, loss of appetite, yellowing of skin or eyes…
That was her, the yellowing of skin or eyes. That was the side effect she’d had from the arthritis medication she’d been on for six months. She was a tester. It paid well. She’d started soon after she’d lost her job in the layoffs and couldn’t find work.
She got up and turned off the television. Rubbed at the sharp pain in her side that she’d noticed on the sixth day of testing for relief of the symptoms of menopause. She’d lied to get in. Been through and over it at least three years ago but the money was good. She found her notebook. Noted the time and rated the pain as a six out of ten. Duration was only ten seconds, but that was longer than ever before.
Tell your doctor if you experience acute muscle pain, lethargy, depression…
That was her, the muscle pain, right from day six and enduring the whole three months through. The lethargy too, and depression. She wrote in her daily journal, “too tired to go see Sarah and the kids. Will try to see them tomorrow.” The depression crept up on her slowly but she did write it down when she talked to her contact. Just as he’d suggested she do.
…or thoughts of suicide.
Yes, that had been her too.
Crikey Moses in a bathtub – this is superb!! Voices the fears we didn’t know we had and so succinctly and cleverly. Are there really such ‘testers’? I don’t know but wholly believe in them now.
(Don’t ever think to start a religion will you Susan, please!)
This one came to me as I watched on of these commercials. I wondered about the people who must participate in the trials before the drug is approved. The “thoughts of suicide” intrigued me, as does one drug that lists “cancer” as a possible side effect. It’s scary!
Religion? Hmmmm.
A friend of mine who is a pharmacist took part in testing, as did many of her classmates at that time. An easy way for students to collect money. But who knows what effect some of the medicines might have on those young bodies as they age.
Well, they need to test on human subjects and people need money and in the end, it’s a symbiotic relationship that benefits us all. but I did wonder about some of those side effects and potential dangers. Especially the one that “may” have produced cancer when it was being taken for arthritis or some such serious but not fatal affliction.