Since my face off with breast cancer in 2018-19, I have dabbled in the world of clinical trials, Guinea pigging myself in the name of medical research. Participating as a subject doesn’t always go as planned, like when I thought I could go pro providing “stool samples” for a study on how gut health influences illness. I misunderstood and thought I would receive $25 for mailing in my dooky bombs, but in reality, it turned out to be a one-time gig. Refresh yourself on that post here.

Undeterred (I was going to say undeturd, but I am not going to stoop to that), I am now enrolled in a 6-month study that involves me wearing a Fitbit and taking daily surveys about my state of mind, how often I take the medication that is supposed to keep the cancer at bay, how I feel, how I sleep, how much I like the people I spend time with. I’ve never had a watch that cared so deeply about me.

Most recently I was identified as a candidate for a study about how compassion meditation can help breast cancer survivors and their partners deal with the stress of the whole cancer clusterfuck (apologies, gentle readers, but I do not subscribe to the whole “cancer journey” term. Journey, my ass. Journeys are fun where I come from). To my surprise, the Iron Chef agreed to apply to the program. I immediately started imagining us cross-legged at couples’ compassion meditation and then booking a couples’ massage, eventually wearing matching outfits and agreeing on which movies to watch.

The head researcher for the study explained that some couples would both participate in loving kindness meditation over Zoom, and some participants would randomly be selected as the control group. These people would be given links to the materials but not attend the sessions. I could tell that he very much wanted to see these Idaho Podunks randomly go into a meditative trance together. He let us know we were selected for the study (duh) and we just needed to complete one more survey requiring complete honesty. No judgment.

I know better when these are the instructions. Our health insurance lured us into a similar trap for their annual “health assessment” which requires you to have a very limited definition of what moderate drinking is (2 drinks/week) and if you are the slightest bit honest you all of a sudden have extra Jehovah Witnesses on your doorstep.

Still, selflessly devoting my body and mind to science, I answered their very personal relationship questions as accurately as possible. Within minutes of submitting our independent responses, Chef skips upstairs, reading aloud the follow up email from the research team:

They figured out from our answers that you need this and I don’t, he chirped. Then asked, what did you answer on how long we’ve been married?

28 years and 8 months, I replied, conferring with my Fitbit, in the habit of watch-wearers.

Ooh, got that one wrong, he said.

Sigh. No couples’ massage, no matching flannels or non-violent films. Just 8 weeks of this worst case scenario. Loving kindly stay tuned.