JESSIE-LANE METZ ARE YOU AT UBC BECAUSE ALL THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR.
This is excellent!! I am a cancer prevention researcher and sleep is a very hot topic right now in chronic disease prevention-- there is a very cool emerging area of research around the importance of sleep hygiene, especially in correlation with obesity. So far my reading on the subject has been limited to the connection between poor sleep hygiene and chronic disease (shift work and being awake at night is also linked to breast cancer), so it was very interesting to learn more of the functions of sleep and how weird our brains are. You go, girl scientist!
I imagine Judy Greer also being a sidekick to this empowered heroine.
You could use pantyliners after getting a Mirena, which is what I do-- every body is different, but my spotting was pretty light and so a pantyliner was the best option. I would be nervous about tugging on something that close to the IUD strings, but I'm not sure how rational that is.
Also, the string is totally unnoticeable during sex for my dude! If you go somewhere where they do a lot of IUD insertions, they should know to not cut the strings super short-- longer strings are better because they will just kind of lie flat against the anterior wall of your vagina. I was worried about this also. It has been no problem.
It's probably not cancer! Polyps or cysts or hormonal imbalances are way more common and are pretty benign.
I know from talking to girlfriends and also living in this icky female body that a lot of ladies get gassy during their period. Although I'd also be interested in a medical professional's expertise on why that is--- "hence the pooping" or another, equally uncomfortable physiological side effect?
Yesssss! I just got a Mirena six weeks ago and I love it. Having it inserted was super uncomfortable (although if you have already had a baby, aka stretched out your cervix, supposedly it's a breeze) but it is already worth it. LOVE IT. I talk to everyone about it all the time.
I had coverage for it, but in Canada even without coverage it's about $360 and the cheapest place to buy it is Costco. Don't worry if you don't have a membership because you can access the pharmacy without one. $360 = $6.00 a month for five sweet pregnancy-free years.
Can I add that if you have coverage, and you feel out of alignment, maybe go see a physio? I felt weird for awhile and it turns out I had sort of pulled my left hip joint, and it was stuck because that's a pretty stiff joint to begin with (bipedalism!) so my physio sort of popped it back in and then I felt way better. Also maybe you'll learn things you didn't know about yourself, like I learned my left butt-muscles are weaker and smaller than the right side ones *hysterical weeping*
I think it's frustrating in any field to hear people confidently explaining something about your profession incorrectly, but it happens an awful lot with science-- and I think Ginny did a good job of articulating why and how that happens on an irritatingly regular basis. But I didn't get that she was annoyed overall about people wanting to learn or talk about physics-- more about people wanting to explain physics when they are totally wrong.
I work in a more accessible layperson-friendly realm of science (currently cancer prevention, previously vaccinations and cancer screening) and I related to this a lot.
In high school they made us run 2.4km as our fitness test (1.5 miles), which may be why Canadians are marginally more fit than Americans! I managed to avoid it every single year through a combination of "knee injuries" when I had a female gym teacher, graphically described uterine woes when I had a male gym teacher, and one year I just cheated on it and no one noticed. RUNNING.
That said, no matter how low my running stamina ever got I would always rather walk a short distance than cram in a bus with my sweaty peers first thing in the morning.
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