Conquering Fear

So, is that my longest hiatus yet? I'm not sure.

I'll admit this whole not-being-in-school is taking some getting used to, and for the past couple of weeks I think I've been busier than I was when I was in classes! OY!

AND I'll admit, I got my first "boring" vote on the LAST post, which I figured was less than interesting at the time, but seeing it there someone actually CLICKED on the 'boring' option...... oy oy oy.

So with how insanely busy I've been with less-than-interesting things I figured blogging more boring blah blah blah was something both my readers and (humiliated) I did not need.

I'm back today, though, so hopefully you find this interesting... ;) hahaha

A while ago I alluded to an opportunity I had to face one of my biggest fears via participation in a study at school. The study is being done by one of my TAs who is working towards her Masters and is, well, slightly less than un-invasive.

Initially when approached about doing the study I found some flimsy reason why I couldn't do it and said 'no,' but knew that Mi was a participant. It took some work but Mi finally whittled me down to the point where upon seeing my TA again in a new class I couldn't BEAR to say no - there was absolutely no reason for me to NOT do the study barring my insane...paranoia. And I'm a tough cookie - no reason to be so scared.

So, finally, it's a go. I'm in. All in. I'm having a meeting with the TA to discuss my in-ness. During the meeting I'm assuring her I'm all in while covertly trying to persuade her I'm somehow broken and she doesn't really want me in her trials.... "oh, it says here if you have a history of fainting or dizziness you shouldn't participate - I passed out getting up one morning just for kicks, dunno why. And I passed out after giving birth when I got up to to to the washroom. And once when I was a kid and hadn't had breakfast and was wearing a really heavy dress and my mom was blow-drying my hair and I felt like I was going to puke I passed out...."

I think all I managed to do was scare the poor girl into thinking she might need to have 911 on super-speed dial for my trial, but she didn't seem swayed to letting me out of my commitment. *sigh*

(WARNING: Boys - this next bit is about women's troubles....head's up!)
So to start my participation I e-mail her the first day of my period. We do that twice, and figure an approximate length of my cycle, estimate my next anticipated start-date (it's SO WEIRD to have that in your calendar - I should have done this YEARS ago!).

Okay, e-mail. I can handle e-mail.

At the onset of my second cycle I'm given a little duckie thermometer and a chart - I'm to wake up every morning and immediately take my temperature. We're measuring to see if my body's temperature fluctuates depending on where I'm at in my cycle. So I do that for a month. Yay.

Then I get contact from the TA. Time to schedule the first trial, which happens 2-5 days after onset of your period. Uh oh. That's like, next week. That's CLOSE. We schedule for Tuesday, expecting day 1 to be Saturday.

Saturday comes and goes.

Sunday comes....and ALMOST goes, but not quite. My period comes. Oh, crap. I have to do this trial. I have to do this trial on TUESDAY. Oh someone shoot me now.

With the arrival of my period comes the arrival of step two in the trial - urine sampling! Oh YAY! From day 1 'till day-it-feels-like-forever I pee in a cup every morning first thing in the morning. First pee. But that's not the best part - you have to pee a bit NOT in the cup and THEN pee in the cup. Have to clear out all the overnight disgustingness. 'Cause pee by itself isn't disgusting, apparently. You get up, stumble to the bathroom, fiddle with a bag full of like, 30 urine-sampling cups, sit down with the correctly-numbered cup, pee, practice your kegel exercises and STOP peeing, place cup in pee-stream-catching position, pee some more, stop peeing, remove cup, and then FINALLY aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........

Urine sampling must be SO much easier for men.

Tuesday. Tuesday's the BIG day. It's my trial day. I get up in the morning, get showered, and Mr. Man, the saint that he is, helps me prepare for my upcoming adventure. (I would NOT have been able to participate if not for him - he's the most amazing man on the planet, I swear).

I got to school. I got hooked up to wires, my skin was burned to stimulate sweating to measure something or other (I 'maxed out' the test, and am the only subject to have done so - is that something to be proud of? I'm a super-dee-duper-sweater?? I guess we take what we can get, eh?) my resting VO2 (amount of oxygen your body absorbs just chillaxin')... I don't even remember. Then off to the washroom to change into my swimsuit and back to be hooked up to every electrode on campus!! I had electrodes on my foot, two on my leg, one on my belly, arm, hand, neck, a probe thingie in my ear for my temperature, and a probe...*ahem* also to measure CORE temperature (the SCARIEST and most uncomfortable part of the experience BY FAR), a little sweat-collector cap thingie GLUED to my forehead, the VO2 mask on over it all.... there were more wires coming out of and off of my body than I ever dreamed possible in my worst nightmares, and this is something I've literally had nightmares about. OY!

THEN, I'm lifted off the ground in this weird harness thing and lowered into a tank onto a stationary bicycle.


From there on in, piece of cake. Get through a 30 minute under-water-cycling workout (it was supposed to be 20 minutes but like the freak-of-nature that I am my sweating rate spiked when it was supposed to plateau so I had to go another 10 minutes!)

THEN I got to watch my favourite movie while 'lounging' in the pool, waiting to freeze to the point where I was shivering. WHICH I'm happy to say never happened. hahaha YAY being a freak!! (We think next time I need to be slightly more submerged than I was for most of the 2 hours before they gave up and shut off the movie).


And THAT is that!! I have to go in again when I'm ovulating...which I guess should be relatively soon. But I SURVIVED once so have like, zero qualms about going again! I can DO hard things, right Blue Belle??

Not QUITE so afraid of the poking and prodding. At least not today.....