Why on earth would you agree to participate in a slightly time intensive medical study when you are busier than you’ve ever been? Ummm… that’s probably a fair question, and it’s complicated, I think, but let’s explain the situation.

I have a chronic illness called Crohns, I was diagnosed in my early twenties and it’s caused a few issues over the years, a bit of hospitalization, some surgery. It has flare ups and remissions, and it sometimes requires drugs and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the drugs are mild with few side effects, and sometimes they seem worse than the disease… it’s all a bit of an inconvenience, but as the name says it’s chronic and not terminal. So it won’t kill me, it will just make life harder. So first reasons for participating in a study is maybe it will help me, or maybe it will help someone else down the track.

The first part of this particular study is related to the effects of exercise on Crohns/IBD, which means high intensity exercising me, and then taking blood at intervals over the next 24hrs, and requires food journals, and fasting before each session. So basically some of my least favourite things exercise, paperwork, needles, and not eating, but I suffer through for the greater good.

The second part of the study involves me having supervised exercise sessions three times a week in a private facility with basically a free personal trainer. So a big reason for signing up is wanting to get fit and improve my health while outsourcing the willpower to a third party. I’m acknowledging that without someones foot kicking me in the arse that it won’t happen. I tend not to run unless I’m being chased.

So that’s mostly why I’m doing it, but also my human interactions took a serious nosedive at the start of covid. As you can imagine having an immune disorder makes you a little nervous about catching things that mess up a working immune system. And then losing the parent that used to drop in for coffee and a three hour chat at least once a week a few months ago reduced my human interactions to basically sod all. Having a reason to leave the house is probably good for me, talking to people certainly is… and it’s a day out.