VANCOUVER, Canada — “You’re about to get the first part of the authentic experience. Boots that are too big.”

Nurse practitioner Patricia Carrick is helping me into Ebola personal protective equipment (PPE), just like the suit she wore on assignment in Sierra Leone 21 days ago, the second of a pair of two-month stints there. We’re in the “Ebola Treatment Unit” constructed inside the convention center at TED Vancouver.

My size seven foot bounces around the size nine boot. I ask if that means the virus can creep in easier. “Actually, the real risk is clumsiness,” she says. “Try not to fall.”

The Gates Foundation is sponsoring the Suiting Up for Ebola experience here at TED, as part of a new push to help combat emerging epidemics before they spiral out of control.

She says large boots were common in the field, since the number of health care workers outnumbered the appropriately sized foot gear. Often, Carrick says, you’re left with what’s available.

Next, she stretches on blue surgical gloves, one of few constants across the variety of Ebola gear you see from different regions and different medical groups.

Pat steps back, looks me up and down and chooses a size large, yellow suit. “You’re tall,” she says, zipping it closed over my chest.

The suit is huge, roomy and full of air in the stomach, arms and legs. That part is fine, she reassures me. It’s important that the length covers most of your boots. I peek down — it seems… okay. At least the elastic around my ankles is tight.

She chooses a white surgical mask next. It’s heavy, not like the cotton face bibs you see on Grey’s Anatomy. She instructs me to hold it under my eyes as I pull the first of two elastic bands behind my head.

“Tuck your hair behind your ears first,” she says. The mask sits high up on my nose; the top is sharp and pokes the bottom of my eyes. “Now squeeze the metal pin around your nose,” Pat instructs.

I do as instructed, but it’s already getting hard to breathe.

And we’re not even halfway through the suiting process.

Bill Gates, who is speaking later in the day, intends to make the process uncomfortable. He wants people to know what it takes to work on the front lines of highly dangerous and infectious environments, including Ebola.

“Right now, the world isn’t ready to fight a highly infectious disease,” a Gates Foundation press release states. “In fact, of all the things that could kill more than 10 million people around the world in the years ahead, by far the most likely is an epidemic, from either natural causes or bioterrorism.”

Although Ebola outbreaks have virtually ceased in Liberia, cases have ticked up recently in Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization. And no one knows for sure what disease is next.

His talk will urge additional steps to prepare for a far worse epidemic and improve treatment.

I wonder how much better the suiting process alone could get, and how quickly improvements could be made.

I pull the hood over my head. I thought this would be the worst part, but the mask is still stifling my breath. The white hood is relatively light and covers my entire head, minus a small window for my eyes.

Next, the second pair of gloves, this time white. Pat puts them on for me, careful to cover the suit hem around my wrists.

The goggles remind me of my high school chemistry class, but a little heavier. I secure them around my eyes first, then pull the elastic band behind my head and over my hood.

It’s getting hotter in the suit. I find that rather than asking questions like a good journalist should, I’m eager to get this over with. I breathe as slowly as possible.

Pat leads me over to a floor-length mirror next. “Here’s something a lot of people forget,” she says, reaching up to tuck tiny portions of my hood under my goggles, around my nose. They were exposed. Pat says she’s rushed to get into clothes before, only to have her buddy pull her back to tuck in this precious component.

She ties a cumbersome black apron around my front, introduces me to my “buddy” Glen, and I’m off to “treat patients” in the next room.

“Wait!” she pulls me back.

Oh no, I think, did I do something wrong? Am I exposed?

She uncaps a black Sharpie and writes something on my forehead. I look in the mirror one last time. It reads “Stephanie,” because now, but for my eyes, I’m completely unrecognizable.

The entire dressing process took about 10 minutes, and we didn’t even take all the normal precautions.

Glen and I pass from the “donning” (dressing) station to the “ward.”

Imagine you’re walking through 95-degree weather into a hot and stuffy room, my handlers instruct. You’re encountering dozens of sick patients; the room is covered in Ebola.

I realize I’m sweating profusely, and I’m walking through a comfortable, air-conditioned conference room, nowhere near the brutal conditions doctors and patients in West Africa face every day. I suck in deep breaths of air and tell myself it will be over in a few minutes. Real doctors and nurses don’t have that luxury.

Dr. Luanne Freer says she watched a colleague of hers encounter a baby who’d just died of Ebola. He was traumatized, and in a panic started tearing off his suit in the middle of an infected ward. His buddy had to hold him and calm him down.

“You have to say, ‘Look in my eyes, take deep breaths, think about what you’re doing,’ she tells me. “That’s why having a buddy is so important.”

We’re not treating Ebola patients today. The handlers instruct Glen to stack numbered boxes, while I hold an IV drop high above my head for two minutes, squeezing saline out of the bag. Glen concentrates on dropping “medicine” into cups: two orange Skittles, two green and one red. I’m a little jealous of Glen, who is having trouble remembering which color Skittles he needs to collect; at least he’s distracted from his anxiety. I’m just standing there, my gloves slippery around my sweating hands.

After we’re finished with our tasks, we move through the tent to the “doffing” station, where we’re to undress. It’s the riskiest part of the process, everyone has warned me throughout the entire exercise.

Dr. Freer, who volunteered to treat patients in Sierra Leone for six weeks, greets me and instructs me to immediately wash my gloved hands. There’s a sink nearby, but we’re just pretending today. Normally, you’d wash your hands in one-minute increments…about 20 times throughout the undressing period. Do the math.

Glen and I stand with our arms held out from our sides. I realize no one has instructed us to do this. It’s a reflex when you feel covered in a deadly virus.

Immediately, we’re sprayed down with a chlorine solution. Typically, this happens in the field for about one minute.

Next, remove your apron facing forward so it slips off your body without splashing.

Wash your hands.

Someone sprays my suit again, under the apron, especially the zipper.

Wash your hands.

Remove your outer gloves, careful to touch only the insides.

Wash your hands.

Close your eyes and remove your goggles by pulling them out dramatically from your face and lifting off.

Wash your hands.

Close your eyes. Reach behind your hood and pluck it off from your face and head.

Wash your hands.

Unzip your suit, pulling it out from your body by the front.

“Now here’s the yoga portion,” says Dr. Freer. “We call it the Ebola shuffle.” Pull your suit down by your shoulders. Then sit on your haunches and tuck the suit down under your butt. From there, you’re not meant to touch the suit at all. You’re supposed to “shimmy” out of it by shaking your legs. I try to do so, but my size nine boots slip off. I have to use my hands, which is a no-no.

Wash your hands.

My mask is next, the worst part. Even with my suit and hood off, it’s still hot, sticking to my face with sweat. Dr. Freer says the scariest thing she experiences in the suit is her sweat. She’s afraid of it. “You’re sweating inside your goggles and literally waterboarding yourself,” she tells me. “Breathing through bubbles in your mask.”

Once when she took off her suit and boots, she poured out nearly a cup of her own sweat. Most days she loses liters worth.

I tear off my mask, far too quickly. The cool air in my lungs is a dream.

Wash your hands.

Finally, I remove my blue surgical gloves, inside out. The insides are slick with sweat.

I look over at Glen and realize they gave him a cooling vest. I touch it; it’s squishy and cool, as if filled with freezer packs.

“Man, I’m glad they gave me this,” he says. “And I’m still burning up.”

Wash your hands.

I exit the doffing station and treatment unit to sit down after about 25 minutes of dressing, treating and undressing. The staff has given me a bottle of water, a Wet Wipe to dab my sweaty hands and forehead.

“Am I going to get Ebola in here?” asks a conference attendee who enters the room in curiosity.

Absolutely not, responds the staff. It’s early in the day and they’re eager to share their experience — but not for people prone to fainting or claustrophobia. I didn’t think I was, but any more time in that suit and I might have.

It’s a tiny, humble fraction of the nightmarish landscape for Ebola patients and their caregivers in West Africa. Their work is invaluable, responsible for keeping a deadly virus as contained as possible. The Gates Foundation simulation reminds us this vocation is certainly not for everyone, that we need to be grateful for the health workers risking their lives and testing their mental health on the front lines of infectious diseases every day.

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