Science 201: Radioactivity and You For a full week, I was Radioactive Girl!! This is a list I complied of fun things to do when you are someone else you know is radioactive!  Oh yes....Radioactivity can be fun!!!

First, a bit of background information on why I was radioactive in the first place.  In the fall of 1997, I was diagnosed with Grave's Disease.  In my knowledge, this means you have an overactive thryroid and it makes your eyes bulge out into bug eyes.  Well, after two years of trying to treat with meds, my doc decided the best thing to do was to kill it with a dose of radioactivity.  The day before I was to take the pill, my doc was explaining all the medical stuff that had to do with it.  After he was through, he asked if I had any questions, that was a bad thing to ask....This was my one question: "Will I be able to do any tricks??" This was the most important thing on my mind, hell...if you're gonna be radioactive, you might as well enjoy it!  After laughing hysterically, he complied a small list for me.  I will share that later, but first, I must tell my 'quirky' ( I love that word) story about taking the pill. I was in this little room with my mom, the doc, and 2 nurses.  A third nurse brought in a cooler, which inside was a thermos, inside of that was another thermos, inside of that was a small test tube, and then, finally, INSIDE of that was the pill. I was looking at this amazingly thinking, you bring it like that and you want me to swallow it???  Well, I did, with all 5 of them watching me intently, like I was gonna blow up or something.  Then after I took the pill, the doctor made me stick out my tongue to make sure I really swallowed it!  Okay, they wouldn't even let me touch it...do you really think I would hide it in my cheek?? But, it did get me a week's vacation from school.  Was so radioactive, I wasn't allowed around pregnant women or children.  Anyway, on with the list of stuff you can do!

The List of Fun Radioactive Activities

1.  First and most important. The underwear rule!  The underwear rule states that when you are radioactive, for whatever reason, you must buy new underwear! There is no logic or reasoning for this, it just simply is.  Don't question it, just do it.  It's not like we make up these rules or anything. (okay, we DO make up these rules, just don't ask us why, cuz we don't have a clue why) 2.  The film trick:  This is a cool little trick given to me by my doc.  You can make neat designs on undeveloped film by putting it up to the radioactive area.  But, you must be in a completely dark room for this to work, because any light will develop it.  I was not able to try this one out, cuz I couldn't find a dark room. So if you do...let me know how it goes, and send me the pics!!! 3. The geiger counter trick:  Geiger counters are what physisists use to count ractioactivity.  I so desperately wanted one of these. The plan was to take it into a bar, point it at someone else (no noise), then point it at me (lots of noise!!). Just fun little tricks to fuck with the drunks. hehe 4. Nuclear power plants can be fun! Was told that if I went to our wonderful local nuke plant, I would set off all the alarms just by simply being there.  Was extremely tempted to try, but was afraid I would blow it up. So refrained from this one.