Hypochondriocity

This one's really boring, and only mildly funny in one or two spots. Don't say you weren't warned that this will be a total waste of your time. Anyway--

I'm one of those people who will some day have on my gravestone: "I TOLD you I was sick!"

I'm not always right, but here's the problem: sometimes I am. This does nothing to discourage a hypochondriac like myself.

I first got the reputation for being a hypochondriac in my teens, when I constantly had a headache. Have you ever had to PROVE you had a headache? Try. Think about it.

The thing is, I DID have a headache. And my shoulders were so tense my earrings generally rested on my clavicles. When I was a little older, people I worked with thought I drank a lot because I never looked well-rested, along with the headache thing, and so on.

I had doctor-hopped, trying to find out what was wrong, when I finally got lucky and found a dentist who told me the artificial implant in my jaw that was supposed to fix things actually fucked them up more, was probably shedding bits of teflon in my body, and had to be removed ASAP. I have the pathology report on the surgery. It's icky.

Point is: I was right.

Then there was the time, 8 years ago, when I had this tiny yet horribly itchy rash on my back. I went to the doctor and said, hey, I know that a little information gleaned from the Interwebs is usually a bad thing, so PLEASE tell me this isn't shingles.

He said sorry, I can't. It IS shingles and this has been a weird morning, because the first patient of the day was a brand new case of tuberculosis and I had to call the CDC, so sorry you had to wait. Shingles at age 34? Effed up.

Then, of course, is the constant battle with depression, and my years of working with my doctor to get the right medicine and dosage. It sucks, but at least the medicine helped me quit smoking. Then last year, Doc finally gave me Cymbalta, which has not only lifted my issues with depression, but also alleviated all those aches and pains I've been living with all my life, which are quite like fibromyalgia pain, even though for once I never self-diagnosed fibromyalgia. Okay, maybe once or twice in my head, but never asked the doctor about it.

So I was feeling GREAT!

Then, as you probably know, my Dad's illness which had already gone from bad to worse, went from worse to critical, then worse to casket. It exhausted me.

I expected the exhaustion to lift, but it only got worse, and the damn trees around me were blocking my view of the forest. Not that I could keep my eyes open to see it. I was sleeping up to 20 hours a day. Then I started craving, and I mean CRAVING anything with salt, that crunched. It was all I would eat: potato chips, bagel chips, saltines, anything. In restaurants, I wouldn't even need a to-go box, except maybe for my steak.

When I went to visit Mother at BeerHound's house in March, the 'Hound stared in awe as I ate an entire bag of potato chips (WITH dip) by myself, as I sat and complained about how swollen my ankles were.

Really, they looked like Stretch Armstrong's buddy He-Man: when poked, the dent from my finger would stay for a minute or two.

That's when the BeerHound said quietly, yeah, that's weird. Go to the doctor.

Now, BeerHound and I theorize on health issues on a daily basis. Due to her past and present professions, nutritionist and lab tech, respectively, she can spout diagnostic data prolificly. But since she's not a doctor, she can't and won't give out medical advice.

That's why, when she had NO other comments on my behavior and symptoms, I took her very seriously and went to the doctor the day after I got back.

At which time, of course, the swelling had dissappeared. So I guess I wasn't having heart failure, or kidney failure, or any other major organ failure. So that was nice.

Good hypochondriac I am, I'd already diagnosed myself with Hashimoto's. It's a type of underactive thyroid condition.

The doctor agreed to do some blood tests, and gave me a diuretic for my now non-existent edema. Then a week and a lot of frustration later, I learned that I was NOT suffereing from a thyroid malady; however, I was severely low in vitamins B12 and D. Now I get to take oral supplements of each, plus sit in the sun for 15 minutes a day, and get monthly B12 shots.

I have no idea why I was so anemic, but it feels really good to be awake again.

Thanks for reading this far. Now go sit in the sun.