Chapter 26
Jeffee Tries to Advance Medical Science
I saw an ad in today's newspaper for CEDRA clinical research. Well that got me thinking about another one of my believe it or not experiences that turned out very negatively. CEDRA is a medical research group that has living quarters and they're looking for people to spend three nights, four nights in a row at their facility. Every now and then they have a big-time study where they want you to stay 7 to 10 days in their facility and do whatever. I don't know, I didn't get the chance to find out. Like today's ad is a perfect example of what got me interested to apply the first time to CEDRA, said seeking healthy, non-– smoking adults, ages 55 – 75 and would pay compensation up to $3,900.
That ad got my attention a while back and I'll tell you what happened. I called them up and they asked me a bunch of questions on the phone and apparently I qualified for the study. I was interested in doing this medical study because it was for Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease has a special place in my heart because my mother suffered from Alzheimer's disease for about the last 25 years of her life. So I was hoping I could make some money and help advance medical science to come closer to a cure for Alzheimer's disease.
And I didn't need to have Alzheimer's disease to qualify for the study. They're also looking for healthy people. Again I think this was the same as the ad I saw today: they were looking for people to at least up to 65-70, I can't remember exactly. The only thing you see in the ad is they say our facilities provide wireless Internet, computers, TV, video games and other activities.
I scheduled an appointment to go down there on a Friday on my day off. Never been there before but I roughly knew the area. Well I think Noah was building his Ark that day because we had the hardest rainfall I have seen probably in the last two or three years in San Antonio and naturally it has to happen when I'm driving over to CEDRA and sign up for what I thought was 10 days of living there and lots of money.
I finally find the place in the driving rain and I park in their parking lot not too far from the entrance. Naturally I go to the wrong door and they point out to me that I got to walk around to the other side of the building and try and find them. And like a top-secret organization when you go in, there is absolutely no sign or anything identifying CEDRA, so I had to keep asking people until finally somebody knew what door I should go through to find them. So I let the receptionist know I have an interview. The nice receptionist said please have a seat in the waiting area. So I wait in the waiting area (what a horrible concept to have on this planet waiting areas), I waited 10 or 15 minutes. I am an impatient person; I don't like to wait. Finally somebody gets me to bring me inside of the facility.
They march me and maybe seven or eight others upstairs to a big room that has a bunch of big, long, rectangular, tables with CEDRA representatives sitting on one side and the patient/ volunteer sitting on the other side. So a very nice gal started asking me all these questions. She goes on for pages and pages and asks all sorts of questions, everything was fine – I was qualified for the study. Then they bounce me around the blood tests, weight, and blood pressure tests – a whole bunch of actual physical tests. That turned out to be the only benefit I got all day as I got a few free tests.
Finally I completed all my tests and I had one last place to go which was to see this Doctor. I don't know exactly about what but I had to see the doctor.
There are a whole bunch of people sitting in the hallway on seats next to me and I heard a couple of them talking. Believe it or not, what these guys were talking about were various medical studies they have been on in Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston, who knows where they had been?
Apparently there are some people who make their living by going and signing up as volunteers for medical tests. I'm sure, ha-ha that the money they make would have no influence on them and they’re strictly there to help advance medical science - not. It never dawned on me somebody could actually try to make a living just by doing medical tests but apparently it is possible.
Doesn't that give you a warm fuzzy when you know that most of the medical tests probably at CEDRA and other medical research facilities have a pretty good minority of professional test volunteers and are not your average guy off the street?
I think that would tend to cloud the results - that would be my opinion. I'm waiting and waiting in the hallway and all these "professionals" are trying to estimate what they think their chances are of getting accepted for this study. One guy is driving to Houston in two days and applying for this other study.
Finally the doctor calls me into her room after I've been waiting 10 or 15 minutes. I believe at this point since I left my house it had been at least two hours I spent inside CEDRA with no money to show for my time.
Finally I'm in the doctor's office and this female doctor comes over to talk to me. She's looking at one of the questionnaires I filled out in odd way. She says, oh you put down that you had cancer. I said yes maybe eight or nine years ago I had prostate cancer, had my prostate removed and now I'm completely healthy. She immediately tells me; oh because you have cancer you can't be in this study. What the hell does having prostate cancer that's been cured for years and years have to do with an Alzheimer's disease research project? Completely asinine.
So basically I stormed out of that doctor's office and started walking down the hall with all the professional medical test people and quickly shouted out to them; your chances of getting accepted for this study just got better because they rejected me because I had prostate cancer.
Then I go I to see this receptionist. I forget what the hell she wanted it but I had to stop and see her. I I said I know you pay $3,900 for people who get accepted in the study; what you pay people who waste two hours of their life, drive here in a driving rainstorm, get jerked around for two hours and then are finally told after two hours they been rejected because they had prostate cancer? Why the hell didn’t you disqualify me on the phone before I ever came over here? I sarcastically said to the gal at the front desk; I bet you don't pay any money to people who wasted two hours and didn't qualify for the study.
Then as I stormed out from the building, I hope that at least the rain would let up a little bit. I told the gal at the desk don't bother calling for any more of your crappy studies for your herky-jerky organization and I don’t want to do business with you ever again. So once again a little ad in the newspaper that shows a wonderful happy woman getting her blood pressure taken by somebody in the white medical jacket for CEDRA triggered something bad in my memory.
The sad thing I can tell about my life is that I have so many bad experiences that I tend to forget about them until something reminds me. And the beauty of doing the biography the way I’m doing it, as Mark Twain did it, is I can add new stuff at any point.
I will go back and forth when I think of something that’s fresh in my brain I will bring it up and tell you all about it. May your experience if you ever decide to go into a medical test facility be a lot better than mine!
I volunteered for a few other medical studies that I did get accepted for. They were always drive to this doctor's office or the clinic's office once a week and I got paid maybe 20 bucks for driving out to a place far away from my work so it would basically be a pain in the ass. I mainly got in those medical studies because the medicine was for some problem I had like sleeping or depression or obsessive-compulsive behavior is sad when you have many mental disorders because then you're always looking for help.
I've learned another trick: just about any medical study will not accept you if you are taking any kind of prescription medicine so keep that in mind if you're thinking of applying for a medical study and pass on the study them before you waste your time. You will be disqualified because you're on some form of medicine.