Help! I Can't Stop Signing Up for Medical Trials
The get rich quick scheme that jeopardized cancer research.
It’s that time of year again: my cancerversary. On this third anniversary of the time a kite-shaped mole tried to make me worm food, I’ve decided to take a break from the negativity of melanoma and focus on the positives of what my oncologist still refers to as “youth cancer survivorship.”
For starters, the constant trips to the dermatologist’s office in the years since mean I never have to wait to try the next new acne-cleansing skin cream sensation.
Then there’s the motorcyclists who mistake the scar on my leg for bike burn. It’s fun cosplaying as an honorary gang member at Florida’s biker bars, but even more fun to watch their bearded jaws drop when I say, “Nope, sorry, just cancer.”
But somehow better than punking bikers and hoarding skin balm are the constant opportunities for free cash from cancer researchers.
While most people might balk at the idea of being conscripted into the league of lab rats, I look at cancer research opportunities as a sort of Get Rich Quick scheme.
Prior to my surgery, my cancer center pitched me on a new research project they were rolling out, designed to store data on current patients for use in later studies. The concept was simple: they wanted my permission to keep whatever medical “excess” would be “discarded” as “leftovers” from my “surgery.”
Now, as a repeat customer of Olive Garden, the Buy One Entree, Take One To Go offer has taught me that there’s no such thing as “excess leftovers.” Every doggy bag is carefully planned. Meals are ordered, portioned, and eaten based on the premise of leftovers.
I decided that I could part with my extra calf fat for the good of cancer research, and signed on the dotted line, stifling myself from asking the Head of Research, “Would you like a piece of Mike to go?”
I still have no idea what, if any, of me they took home, but I smile at the thought that there might be a part of my leg in a jar somewhere, waiting to be called upon for the breakthrough of modern medicine.
Three years have passed since I gave away part of my leg like a carryout order. I’m cancer free now, and my generosity knows some bounds. In the words of Monty Python, I’m not dead yet. I haven’t donated my whole damned body to science, just a bit of it!
Or at least, that was my thought process until emails came pouring in with the subject line, Paid research opportunity!
It turns out that many people feel the way I did, and the cash-rich medical industry has developed a palm-greasing process to find willing participants for their studies.
When the first email came, I nearly fell out of my chair answering it.
Dear researcher,
Yes, I had cancer.
Sure, I’ll take your money.
Love,
Mike
Now, don’t worry. I didn’t trade any further pounds of flesh for cash. No, I earned my money the old fashioned way: by taking a series of cognitive exams.
In short, they asked me, in fifty different ways, “Do you feel dumb or depressed?”
And I answered, in fifty different ways, “Maybe.”
I’ve done research before. I’ve completed qualitative studies and administered surveys before. I understand, in theory, how this all works. And yet I cannot fathom how any of my answers would help them.
Imagine the looks on their faces as they read my slew of non-committal answers:
Does life feel hopeless?
Oh, I dunno.
Did having cancer make you upset?"
I mean, yeah. Sure.
No sooner had the check for those hard hitting answers hit my bank account than another invite appeared in my inbox. The researchers read my lackadaisical survey responses and decided, “Yep, he’s our guy.”
The warning signs should have tipped me off when the researcher actually called me to warn me how hard the next examination was.
“Don’t feel discouraged if you perform poorly during the memory test. It’s not an indictment of your intelligence,” she said.
“What’s the test about again?” I asked.
“Shapes and colors.”
“Yep, I’ll be fine.”
I was not, in fact, fine.
As per the instructions, I found a quiet room for an hour, brewed a cup of coffee, and got to work. First, the examination was easy. It showed me a pink circle on the left side of my screen, and then a blue square on the right. Both shapes would fade to black and the test’s robot voice asked, like Dora the Explora, “Where was the pink the circle?”
Labradors doing tricks have felt less pride at their achievements than I did after hearing, “Good job finding the pink circle!”
It was like stealing money from a cancer center.
Then things changed.
Suddenly we were no longer dealing within the realms of simple shapes and primary colors but rather complex configurations of variegated hues. Not only that, but the speed at which I was asked to answer increased.
In layman’s terms: I was fucked.
After an agonizing half hour of Advanced Placement Kindergarten, I hit a wall. I had sucked my coffee cup dry and was fumbling hard, face to face with colors that must have been invented after I graduated elementary school, shapes so bizarre even Dalí declined to paint them.
I almost broke my trackpad trying to answer the questions in time, but the test narrator was a stone cold bitch.
“Let’s try that shape again,” it said.
“I am trying!”
I clicked the shape I thought I’d seen.
“Let’s try that shape again.”
I wanted to grab Dora the Explora by the straps of her backpack and shake her. “Where the hell is the blue mountain?!”
After failing several more attempts, the test gave up on me. No child left behind did not apply to men in their 20s.
“Let’s move on…” it said.
“No!” I screamed. “I want to try that shape again!”
The memory test ended without giving me a final score. Not that I’d remember it. My idiocy would remain a mystery, but an email alerted me that my gift card had been deposited. That was that.
Cold hard cash. But at what cost?
Surely, when the eggheads at the lab looked at my results, they would see how far I’d fallen. They’d ask, “Was this guy a dumbass before he had cancer?”
They would compare my scores on the shapes-and-colors front to my answers on the first questionnaire, in which my response to “Are you depressed?” was “Depends how the Sixers are doing.”
I was finally a certifiable, peer-reviewed dumbass, but, like anything in life, the feeling of digital cash in my account made up for things. As a cancer-versary gift to myself, I’m using that cash to buy myself something nice.
Something that a dumbass totally wouldn’t buy. Something that most definitely does not confirm how simple I am:
Shouts out to…
Shehan Karunatilaka, for melting my face with his novel, “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.”
Whitney (the band), for melting my face with music at The Regent.
The bartender at HiDef Brewing Co., for letting me try like four beers for free because she was bored.
Loved your story, Mike. Working at U of Penn, i completed many a survey for $20 cash money. Treated myself to a great lunch on that very day. Gave my opinion on furniture styles and my preferred shape of a women’s breast. I mean there so many outstanding shapes and sizes, i could not possibly chose so quickly. I was thrilled with the fast money but disappointed with the ordinary small breastess’s that God gave me. I have laughed about that experience in a longlong time Michael.Thanks. Ooxx