My New Career as a Lab Rat

       The other day I was on the treadmill again in the interest of science.

 I am a semi-daily visitor to the treadmills at my YMCA, but lately I've been going farther afield, to an exercise lab at Springfield College.

     

   It was full of interesting equipment, some of it easier to figure out than others.

  ????

        This was my final trip there as a volunteer for my neighbor’s research thesis toward her Masters in Clinical Nursing.

       

        The goal?

In fancy medical terms, it is

“Adiponectin, leptin and the ratio between them are the chemical messengers, so to speak, that are being looked at by researchers to see if they play a role in the prevention of cancer progression.”

        Got that? Simply stated, she’s studying the relationship between cancer and exercise.

I figure it’s high time something productive came out of cancer having twice pitched its tent on my doorstep.

Happily, I have no pictures for you of how delightful I looked once I was strapped into headgear with tubes to breathe into, and electrodes attached to my mid-section while also hooked into a blood pressure machine. I imagine I looked something like a diver out of Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo. 

I can tell you that exercising with a tube

the size of a cardboard toilet paper roll

in your mouth and a glorified clothespin

on your nose is not the treat that it sounds.

But aside from having to admit my true weight to my neighbor, the whole experience was sort of fun. I mean, who doesn’t like being the center of attention, without having to undergo major surgery?

Bottom line: There is a direct correlation between regular exercise and the recurrence and/or severity of disease.

I just need to remind myself of that fact when the couch and the TV clicker call.