It all started with a letter from the hospital, I had had an accident in my car I must have blacked out for a second and hit a tree. The car was written off but I was physically ok, or so I thought. I was taken to hospital by ambulance to be checked out and was kept in for just over a week. It turns out that I had a COPD attack (chronic, obstructive, pulmonary, disease) and they needed to get it back under control. This unfortunately meant that my driving licence was suspended for a minimum of 6 months so I was put on sick pay and not allowed to work.
About a month into my sick leave I received a letter from the hospital asking me if I would like to go on a trial programme testing if half the dosage of a drug they used for COPD would work just as well as a full dosage, as I wasn't taking the drug I would be an ideal candidate.
So here I was at the hospital waiting for someone to tell me more. A young nurse called Kate asked me to follow her, I guessed that she was in her early 20's with an athletic type of body and a lovely friendly smile and manner. She led me into a typical doctor's room, desk, bed, sink and everything else that you would expect to see. There sat at the desk was a woman in her 30's it was hard to guess her age due to the way she was dressed, she wore an open white coat, black knee length skirt not too tight and a white blouse under which you could vaguely see the outline of a white bra. Her hair was blonde and curly and about shoulder length, whereas Kate's was the similar except hers was more of a brown colour. She introduced herself as Dr Jane Bowers and told me call her Dr or Jane and then explained that the trial involved taking a pill each day and writing down if I suffered any side effects and how I felt, it could be a real pill or a placebo and that even she did not know which was being given to me and that if I agreed I was to sign a letter saying that I agreed to complete the course if required and undergo any medical tests that they may need.
