@chamberlainnl The tech working with me was pretty thwarted by not having a clear mapping from the items on my meds list, to diagnosis dates. The words "when did you start being transgender?" were uttered, then backpedaled from. I spelled "vaginal atrophy" aloud as requested, without snickering, and I think that goes on the bingo card for medical interactions.

@dentalflossbay ha, oh noooo...! Yeah I had some awkward convos about contraception despite the fact that I have done IVF 3x and absolutely definitely can't have (another) kid I still had to agree to use contraceptives. Also the lady doing mine was reading the list of outdoor hobbies (NGL picnicking made me laugh) and animals and said "yeah this was written by English people so it's really bad". And kept repeatedly complaining about the silly English things.

I'm English 😂

@chamberlainnl I got the idea that they don't interact with actual ticks much: "I usually put the ticks in a jar full of alcohol. Should I keep count? Do you want them?" got some bogglement. (If I find a tick actually latched on, I am to put it in a baggie in my freezer just in case.)

@dentalflossbay I asked "Do we find out at the end which group we were in?" - "No".

"Well, what about if the product comes to market, I would definitely want to know then, because if I don't need it again I won't get it." - "umm...no one has ever asked that, I really am not sure but I would guess that...ummm?"

Seriously, no one ever asked that??

@chamberlainnl Oh, I asked that one and got a different answer!

I saw paperwork that said I'd be unblinded at the end of the study, but not guaranteed a dose if the study is successful. I asked the PI and was told "huh, that's unusual, I would think we'd give you a dose at the end of the study if you end up in the control, and I'll see what I can do about it."

@dentalflossbay oh that's good to know! Yeah they seemed a bit confused. I was later told I could request to know only AFTER the product came to market, if it ever did...🤷‍♀️

@chamberlainnl Given that there's a protocol for revealing your status (and kicking you our of the study) if it affects your medical care, I would imagine you could reasonably yank on that process once the study is concluded, if nothing else.

@chamberlainnl Yeah, I get that they don't want to experiment on pregnant people, but given that they're doing a urine test each time and the vaccine platform itself is safe for pregnancy, I'm not sure why they care so much about listing the reasons I could not possibly be pregnant.

@dentalflossbay the nurse literally said to me "we don't want any babies with three heads or anything!"

I stifled the urge to say "well, not unless they have superpowers as well." 🙄

@chamberlainnl The technician had the audacity to be surprised when I promptly gave year-month-day on my last menstrual period (several years in the past) despite some head-scratching over dates of diagnosis for various small things.

@chamberlainnl Also my second appointment involved looking up the state of RI website for reporting employee wage theft, after the (same) technician complained that his paycheck was a week late and he was planning to not show up on Monday if this wasn't rectified.

@dentalflossbay omg that's bonkers 😳😂
That's much worse than all of the people at our site complaining they didn't have any sharpies.
Additionally I was told I was going to get a card at the end onto which they deposit the payment, but they never gave me anything. I don't care particularly as I wasn't doing it for that reason but still. Where's my card?

@chamberlainnl I got $50 for each visit, I think, on a plastic "clincard" that's reloadable. I get text message notifications each time they load it. I'd ask at the next visit...?

NB if you have an adverse event (I had an upper respiratory infection that's packing a lingering cough) they start calling and texting to check in, so I'm having a "nope, still coughing" text interaction with a staff member every few days.