Not a Frog

Apparently I’m not the only one who’s a mere leap away from death. My blog is too, considering I’ve posted what…once this month, and it’s already the nineteenth. I suck. I know. I don’t have a good excuse, except that I’m dying of throat cancer. Oh, and my alcoholism has been replaced by seriesism (the obsessive watching of TV shows recently released to DVD).

But, back to the crux of the post; I’m dying. A few days ago, out of the blue, as I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, and surfing the net on company time, I became “aware” of an “odd” sensation at the back of my throat. The sensation was similar to what I’d imagine a large marble stuck under the base of my tongue would feel like. So I did what any normal person would do:

I coughed.

It didn’t go away.

I coughed harder.

It still didn’t go away.

I panicked.

I had a near breakdown in the middle of my office—as I’ve been known to do from time to time—and sat at my desk for the next twenty minutes under my hand-held mirror trying to position my open mouth perfectly in the light so I could see the cancer growth that apparently isn’t there. (And this is probably too much information but, I even tried to wipe said invisible growth off with a wad of toilet paper, which, needless to say, was not one of my better ideas).

So there you have it, ever since that day, I’ve been convinced I have throat cancer. And I probably do and I’m probably gonna die.

A rip off of a post, I know. But you have to admit the five paragraphs netting sixteen words was good.

It's My Middle Name

I have quite the large assortment of fillings in my mouth. Ten to be exact, and all in an attractive silver, instead of white composite, (because my mom was too cheap to care that my mouth would eventually look like a scrap yard). And the fillings aren’t there because I don’t brush my teeth, I do, daily, I promise, I just have a strong affinity for the dentist. But I digress.

About three months ago, one of those lovely, shiny fillings fell out. Okay, honestly, it became “loose,” and lodged in the crevasse between my other tooth, and I picked and pulled, with dental floss and tooth picks and everything else I could get my hands on, until one beautiful Sunday afternoon, I pulled that little piece of scrap metal smooth out of my mouth and left a gaping hole in my molar.

Now fast-forward three months.

The phone book lays open on the table. Bottles of codeine, Advil and NightQuil are strewn across the floor. I lay wriggling in pain on the couch as the exposed nerve in my molar feels like it is being repeatedly stabbed with an ice pick.

In true procrastinator style, I still haven’t called the dentist for my filling that fell out three months ago, and I’m paying for it in pain. If I can’t make it through the weekend, which is a very real possibility, I’ll be paying for it in dollars too.

On the Bright Side

It’s good to be a hypochondriac who knows she’s a hypochondriac because when I think I’m dying, I know I’m not, only I don’t.

Almost

I almost forgot what it’s like to have a pit of impending doom in my stomach; almost forgot how unnerving the false sensation of suffocation is; forgot what it’s like to have palms coated in layers of sweat.

I almost forgot. And then I woke up. Literally. I woke up this morning with anxiety like I haven’t had in what feels like forever.

Racing heart. Shortness of breath. Sweaty palms. Clenched jaw. A limitless supply of irrational fears and self-deprecating thoughts. All the usual symptoms are present.

Every minute of this day feels like an hour. Blow-drying my hair, driving to work, riding the elevator, small talk with co-workers: all the things I usually do with relative ease (okay, except the elevator), are suddenly paramount challenges.

My only solace is knowing that there are others out there who feel the same way; knowing that somewhere someone else is sitting at their desk with a pit of doom in their stomach and sweat pouring from their hands; knowing that we are almost through this god damn day...

Next on the List

I've said it before and I'll say it again, aside from being an anxiety-ridden hypochondriac, I'm also a paranoid schizophrenic.

On a good day, I can manage being alone in my house for fifteen minutes. Now that there’s a serial killer loose in my town, I can’t manage taking a crap by myself.

The body of the third victim: five foot tall, 98 pound, nineteen year-old, brown-haired college student Brianna Denison was found less than a mile from my house. Her dead, naked body (I could be making the naked part up) lay rotting, for a week, in a field I can throw a stone at from my back yard.

And sure, I realize there are people out there who’ve lost a daughter and a sister and a friend; my heart truly goes out to them, but let’s be honest, this murder is about me.

The similarities between yours truly and what used to be Brianna Denison are striking. Now given, I do eat and hence weigh about fifty pounds more, but the height, the hair the age, it’s all the same. I’m consumed with the thought that if I unknowingly cross the killer’s path, I’m done.

Hell, I’m terrified to even write about the whole situation; I’ve watched enough movies to know that those who talk about the serial killer quickly become his prey. So here’s to hoping that you really can’t believe everything you see on TV.

You know you're crazy when...

You wake up on a lovely Saturday morning to an intense stabbing sensation in the back of your neck and know immediately what it’s caused by; a throat tumor pushing on your spine.

Where's My Day Off? Er, Happy Valentine's Day!

While I'm no fan of consumer-based holidays (unless of course, I get the day off, which doesn't appear to be the case this February 14th), I'll take any excuse I can get to binge drink, so in that spirit, cheers to the lovely St. Valentine!

Hypo-Logic

I guess I’ve always known I didn’t want children; hell, at age twelve, when the other girls were asking their moms if they could get their ears pierced, I was asking mine if I could get my tubes tied.

The screaming. The drooling. The pooping. The helplessness. The responsibility. Children have always been a turn off. But it wasn’t until recently—thanks in part to The Childless Revolution—that I thought seriously about children, and decided, with some certainty, that they are not in my future.

The sheer prospect of hoarding money solely for myself left me giddy, and dreaming of, gasp, spending it on luxurious vacations and extravagant home remodels, instead of braces for some ingrate teenager, brought me an indescribable feeling of joy. I could finally bask in my selfishness with confidence; children were not for me.

But as I laid in bed last night, with visions of Amsterdam and early retirement dancing through my head, it hit me, I was wrong all along; not about not wanting children; but about the reason why. It wasn’t my inherent selfishness that brought me to the conclusion; it was something much deeper, and it deserves its own run-on sentence:

I think the reason I really don’t want children (aside from all the obvious reasons, i.e. peace, sanity and happiness) is because some subconscious part of my being knows that I have an aggressive form of ovarian cancer; that I will never see thirty, let alone have the opportunity to procreate, and am therefore unknowingly “protecting” myself from more disappointment then my early, painful and unexpected death will bring.

Ahhh, the mind of a hypochondriac.

Forgive me, Father

I’ve committed the ultimate hypochondriac sin; violated the sanctity of all things hypo and chondriac; I’ve watched Grey’s Anatomy. And I haven’t just “watched” Grey’s Anatomy, as in I stumbled across an episode on regular TV and indulged in the morbidity for an hour, no! No, what I did is far worse; I raided the local Blockbuster, and obsessively watched over sixty straight episodes.

And now, thanks to my gluttony, and despite the fact that I had an unremarkable pap smear just under a month ago, I’m wholly convinced that an aggressive form of cancer has infiltrated my female organs.

I blame Richard’s niece, who at seventeen is practically dead from the same affliction, and the Amish girl, who at no more than twenty had a massive tumor protruding from her nether regions.

But the blame does not rest solely on Grey’s shoulders; The Beast is also at fault (as she always is). We all know genetics play a role in one’s health, and guess whose mother had an ovarian cyst the size of a football when she was only a teen. Yep, that would be me. And guess whose brother has a rare form of cancer that only sixteen other people in the United States have. Yep, that would also be me.

Now excuse me while I go finish up season three.

Foot Drop?

Misery loves company, and I’m no exception to the rule, so I thought I'd pass this lovely article on to the rest of the world.

For those of you wise enough not to follow the link, here's a snippet:

The immediate clinical diagnosis was "foot drop," which to a normal person might not sound all that alarming. But to a man with a lifetime of extensive and obsessive medical knowledge, all of it horrifying, it sounded really bad. As I traveled to the neurologist's office, I went over in my mind what I knew to be the possibilities: Foot drop can mean you have diabetes, which was the diagnosis I was hoping for, because foot drop can also mean a stroke, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease or (I swear) leprosy.

Fuck the Patriots

AAA HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Fuck you, Tom Brady! And FUCK YOU, Randy Moss! Punk ass little bitches!

Pardon the language, I think I've developed tourette's.

Back Up Off My Splints

Shin splints, they are real, and I’m tired of people telling me they’re not. Given, I’ve been known, at times, to “imagine” afflictions (such as throat collapse and organ combustion), but shin splints—like cancer—are as legitimate as I am crazy.

And it’s not the gnawing pain in my lower legs on which I’m basing this conclusion. Nor is it my recently acquired limp that’s convinced me. I have all any person could ask for: acknowledgment from Wikipedia.

That’s right suckas! Lesson adjourned.

Speeding Down the Hill

In the words of my loving boyfriend:

“You’re a crazy anxiety nut job…”

…sadly, I must agree. This month has been a mental health mishap, that started with the pap smear from hell.

You see, where I come from, hospitals are impressive ten story buildings. They’re equipped with cafeterias and gift shops (and teenage candy stripers), and pharmacies the size of single family homes. They’re cold. Quiet. Impersonal. Clean.

Where I live now, hospitals look more like funeral homes, by which I mean they’re literally converted Victorian cottages. If they didn’t have large-lettered signs on their grassy front lawns, you’d never know they existed. And that’s all fine and dandy, bigger isn’t necessarily better, or so I thought before that fateful visit.

An aura of naivety must have radiated from every inch of my being as I wandered into the cozy waiting room, and then calmly followed the nurse in Christmas scrubs through the cramped hallways into one of the three examination rooms.

And although her fifteen minute diatribe on the shitty-ness of Christmas was comical—considering she was decked out in reindeer scrubs—I was happy to finally be alone on the tissue lined table when the elderly nurse left the room.

Laughing to myself about the irony, I exchanged my clothes for a backless, polka dot gown, when I suddenly noticed a bead of sweat stream down my forehead; the goddamn room must’ve been 110 degrees! But before I could curse the good lord for the extreme temperatures I was cruelly being subjected to, I noticed something on the floor: CARPET! Carpet in a fucking hospital room! I was beside myself. And that wasn’t all, where a sink should have been, for oh I don’t know hand washing, there was a 1980’s boom box blaring, of all things, country music. It was like I had been sucked into The Twilight Zone.

I won’t go into the details of the pap, but I will say in my seven years experience, it was the WORST I’ve EVER had. The procedure was an exorbitant thirty minutes of excruciating pain that left me bleeding for the rest of the afternoon, and singing this song...

Which brings me back to the point, bigger is definitely better. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Truth be Told

Do today's duty, fight today's temptation; do not weaken yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.
-Charles Kingsley

Where to Begin?

Oh, I know! (Cue heavenly background music)...

HAAAALLLLLLLELUJAHHHHH!
HAAAALLLLLLLELUJAHHHHH!
HALELUJAH! HALELUJAH!
HA-LE-LU-JAH!

The Beast and my brother have departed after an eight day visit. (I never thought I would say those words).

It was an eight day visit that started with a bang as I spotted The Beast in baggage claim and cheerfully strolled over to her, “You look great!” I exclaimed, lying of course, but making an effort to be cordial, “You’ve lost so much weight!” “I have,” she replied, nose snarled in true Beast fashion, “but what’s wrong with you? I’ve never seen you at this weight. Are you okay? Are you sick? When’s the last time you saw the doctor?”

Um, yeah, I love you too mom. It was about there that I peeled the phony smile off my face and succumbed to what I was in for: eight days of torment.

That night was disastrous. She had apparently started drinking that morning on the plane and by the time we sat down for dinner and finished our fourth bottle of wine she was a belligerent, raging drunk. Squishing her pasta in her hands at the dinner table, breaking wine glasses, making uncalled for and hostile remarks towards Rey. When we sat down to watch The Simpsons Movie she was uncontainable. Screaming profanities, kicking her feet and shaking her head, parroting the movie lines. It was like we were in a bad movie, instead of watching one, (only The Simpsons wasn’t a bad movie, it was actually pretty awesome).

And so the rest of the visit went. She forced me to go shopping on the busiest shopping day of the year, where she proceeded to talk to any willing individual in the stores. She let my cat outside on Christmas Eve who subsequently went missing for the next four hours. She shook her head and scoffed every time I dared to eat. She was restless and repeatedly asked what we were going to do next.

But all that being said, and although I’ve developed an eating disorder and feel like I’ve been beat with a baseball bat, the visit wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Now, that being said, you can bet your ass there won’t be another visit for a very long time.

Merry Fucking Christmas Eve

Shoot Me Now

The Beast and my brother are in town for eight days. They flew in yesterday and I’m already on the verge of suicide.

I’ll fill you in later, assuming I don’t eat a bottle of sleeping pills by then.

You Can Always Count on WebMD

It never fails! When I’m not surfing “It Which Must Not be Named” (read WebMD) on my own accord, that bastard site tracks me down and pumps the fear of god into me. We’re connected like Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.

Now given, the connection could have something to do with me foolishly signing up to receive a newsletter from that ungodly organization, but is it really necessary to fill my inbox with subject lines that read “Are Your Arteries Headed for Disaster?” and “Sudden Death Gene Strikes Women Most.” No, I don’t think so.

So now, thanks to You Know Who, what started as a pleasant morning has turned into an afternoon obsession with atherosclerosis; apparently, America’s number one killer. And also thanks to You Know Who, things like: “Atherosclerosis is dangerous because it's so stealthy” and “Diseases caused by atherosclerosis also lead to chronic pain, kidney failure, blindness, and even impotence” and “Athero is linked to nearly 1 in 4 deaths in the United States” are running rampant through my mind!

So in the wonderful holiday spirit of giving, you too can get the shit scared out of you by clicking here.

Wishing I was born in the UK

It has just come to my attention, while mindlessly surfing the web, that UK residents are afforded a luxury—a mighty fine luxury I might add—that I, in the states, am not; a do-it-yourself liver test. How remarkably ingenious!

You can find out the condition of your liver without even putting the beer down. All you do is prick your finger, send the blood and your hundred pounds to the lab, wait ten days, and voila, color coded results show up in the post (as they call it in those parts).

“If it’s green, ‘your liver enzyme levels are within the recommended normal range.’

If amber, ‘your liver health is less than optimal and you need to look at making changes to your lifestyle.’

And if red, ‘even mild liver test abnormalities may be an early clue to liver disease. You must make significant changes to your lifestyle to protect your liver in the future.’”

What kind of backward ass country am I living in? I can walk out my front door and get a gun and an abortion within a block of the house, but I can’t get a god damn home liver test. I need to relocate.

Oh, and you lucky UK residents can purchase a bloody kit, here.

Front Lines

I didn’t have the chance to mention it, because I was obsessively cleaning my house for the last two weeks, but Rey graduated (with two B.A.’s) last weekend, and thirty of his out-of-state relatives were there to applaud him.

That means thirty of his relatives, including his neurotic dad, delusional sister, and super annoying, super tattooed cousin from SAN FRANCISCO were in my house; in my personal—but very clean space—at once. And despite all the anxiety I experienced leading up to the event, I must admit that I actually enjoyed it. I basked in the company.

It could’ve been the alcohol that made it more manageable, but I almost felt like my social anxiety was non-existent. No sweaty palms. No heart flutters. No blushing. No shaky voice. I did feel my ears turn red when Rey’s mom thanked me during her dinner toast, but aside from that, I was like a pro.

Now all that being said, I awoke the morning after they left with severe, right flank pain and met the following days with heart attack-like symptoms.

I’m thankful the social anxiety is at a low, but the hypochondria is suddenly at a high. One more thing I didn’t mention is The Beast and my brother are coming in to town and staying at my house for an entire week over Christmas; maybe that’s why I’m suddenly dying.