Good morning, today is dysentery day. We can’t ingest anything for 90 minutes before the shigella bacteria smoothie. If my mama didn’t raise me better, I’d be making a lot of Last Supper in Jerusalem jokes about my breakfast right now, and they would be very funny. https://t.co/liZ95bh7xD

It has become abundantly clear that the nurses are reading my tweets, which means the one who drew my blood the other day may have seen this and now have some questions. kill me https://t.co/ZnIAGbzqpa

none of this was ever supposed to go viral, I blame all of you people. I am not a total creep I swear

T-minus one hour or so until we drink the shigella smoothies. We (16 of us in total) gotta stay in the lounge until then because we can't ingest anything for 90 minutes before or after. https://t.co/KnqHmJarAR

For my actual job I am currently researching a lot of COVID disinfo/anti-vaccine videos, podcasts, etc., and it’s darkly hilarious to hear these unhinged charlatans screech about how dangerous vaccines are while doing this trial

You, a whiny, destructive gremlin: these vaccines were only EMERGENCY authorized by the FDA, telling me take them is tyrannical and unethical
Me, not a wet wipe of a human being: I really hope I got the actual experimental Pharma Juice and not the placebo

But seriously, reading up on these processes and experiencing first hand how they meticulously test the safety and efficacy of these inventions has reinforced my confidence in the institutions and norms of medical research when it comes to human drugs

"Doing your own research" is cute n' fun when buying a car or a dog but neither you nor I have the faculty to fully assess drug safety and efficacy. We have to rely on the "medical community" — its norms, institutions, regulations — to adjudicate the information for us.

I don't believe for a second that every single one of those norms, institutions, regulations etc. is 110% epistemologically and morally unassailable, but they did eliminate fcking smallpox, so I am comfortable taking my chances. anyways sorry for the big words back to shitposting

Annnnd infected!! 🤪Here's a delightfully unflattering selfie while taking the buffer solution 2 minutes before the actual shigella solution. Both tasted like saline. Didn't try to do a video for the latter solution because I was not trying to drop biohazard juice on the floor https://t.co/dMWmWAQQhI

Did try for a video while playing Shots! but when you press the video button on iPhone it turns off your music, go figure.

Symptoms should arise in a day or so. Expected attack rate (incidence of infections) is 80%, so around 3 of the 16 of us will probably be totally fine. (I know you all are secretly hoping that I get it, sickos). Now I need to go do my actual job, god bless

oh and: we LOVE to see it!!

Reminder that this study is still recruiting, and has had some trouble getting the numbers they need! If you are in the DC/Baltimore area and have questions, send me a DM. https://t.co/VfwbPn6xwj

Here's the one I'm in, the UMD study. I'm partial to them, of course, but... https://t.co/u6ddU3vqhr

Johns Hopkins has another shigella-related study recruiting right now as well (two separate inpatient stays). https://t.co/WBFYkpquMw

bonus, for the Hopkins one, you know who's making your delicious shigella smoothie. ask her if she could add some crystal lite flavor powder or something (do not ask her that) https://t.co/si2kMzo7bI

Excited to be a case study for a medical ethics research article next year, "How Much Tweeting is Too Much? Clinical Experiment Design and Implementation with Terminally Online Subjects"

6 hours-post challenge. As expected, not feeling anything yet, except a low-level sense of... yearning? ennui? as I wait for my baby shigellettes to mature.

Also, just learned about my twin, The TikTok Norovirus Girl. desperately need to be her friend https://t.co/rp5AolEnTq

the meals, which are pretty good, often do come with the sad little side salads. you know exactly the kind I'm talking about. I feel bad throwing them out and have started hoarding them under the pretense of "oh it's a snack for later" https://t.co/mpxwOuXrbN

Returning to the baby shigella gestating within me at the moment, if I don't get dysentery, am I a bad parent? what /is/ motherhood? am I queering diarrhea? in this narrative, exploratory essay, I will interrogate the structur—

already have started hyperanalyzing every single sensation in my body, like "am I slightly dizzy because I stood up too quick or because I am being RAVAGED by a VICIOUS PATHOGEN"

I yet to produce a stool sample today. Time, o unforgiving Time, marches inexorably forward. A spectre is haunting me — the spectre of the midnight rectal swab.