When Andrew Iwanicki lost his job in August, he probably expected to be spending a lot of time in bed.
Little did he know that he�d actually be paid to do it. The very next day, he received an offer to join a NASA study that required him to lie in bed for three months straight, in exchange for a whopping $18,000!
�My bed is in the NASA Flight Analog Research Unit in Houston, Texas, where I�m being paid $18,000 to lie down for 70 days while NASA researchers study me,� he wrote. �I have been in this bed for three weeks now, and I will be here for seven weeks more.�
Andrew explained that the study � CFT 70 (Countermeasure and Functional Testing in Head-Down Tilt Bed Rest Study) � is part of a three-year effort to learn about bone and muscle atrophy in space. The team of NASA researchers have studied 54 people so far, and Andrew is the last participant.
�I had applied to the study a year earlier on a whim, assuming I�d never be chosen from the pool of 25,000 applicants and I�d never be able to halt my hectic life for 15 weeks,� he explained. But as fate would have it, he suddenly found himself with an empty schedule and an offer in hand.
�I decided that I needed a break,� he wrote. �So I put my life on hold and flew to Houston two weeks later. As I lie here, I can�t quite decide if I�ve struck gold with this scheme or if I am just a fool willing to do anything for a stack of cash.�
As it turns out, staying in bed is a lot more difficult than you�d expect. Andrew isn�t used to such long periods of inactivity.
Prior to the study, he trained rigorously and even completed his first Ironman race. And now that he�s completely bedridden, he�s worried that his body might fall apart completely. His experience at the research centre has actually been far from pleasant.
Andrew was placed in a bed that tilts at a six-degree angle, which he says is extremely uncomfortable. �Every time I turned or twitched, I slid towards the headboard and, within a few minutes, was slammed against it with my neck turned sideways. To resist the gravitational pull, I laid as still as possible, but then the back pain began to set in.�
<<Print>>