Tweet-da-leet-a-leet, Tweet-da-leet-a-leet...

All the little bloggers on Hypo Street
Love it when Leila goes tweet, tweet, tweet…
Rock that bloggin’…
Tweet, Tweet-da-leet, Rock that bloggin’…

Oh yes, I’ve still got it. I’m still capable of creating annoying versions of already annoying songs. It’s one of my many, many talents, along with neglecting my blog and contracting rare illnesses.

I am still alive for those of you that care. Although I’m suffering from cervical cancer, which I developed after allowing a nurse to inject me with a “vaccine” that I knew was unsafe.

But that’s beside the point; this whole tweet-da-leet-ing post is to announce that I—much behind the curve as usual—have joined Twitter. You can find my tweets, or twits if you prefer, over in the sidebar.

Say Aww

Seeing as how I’ve had four—yes, 1, 2, 3, 4—root canals (on the same tooth), in the last three months, I’m not particularly tickled with this article about the implications of poor oral hygiene.

Why can’t a cavity just be a cavity? Dry mouth a sign of thirst? What has the world become when a cavity equates to heart disease; dry mouth to leukemia? Is it me, or are things getting a little bizarre here?

Aside from a mouth full of fillings and four recent root canals, I—prior to my tonsillectomy—was a chronic sufferer of strep throat. So maybe, just maybe, my skepticism is based on the realization that if “opening your mouth” really is like, “cracking open the hood of your car,” then I’m screwed. But I stand by my initial reaction that any article with the words: “your dentist should be one of your best friends,” is a real crock.

One Small Request

Even though I take birth control religiously, and have done so for almost nine years, I have a creepy obsession with becoming impregnated, and pregnancy in general. Honestly, I’m half convinced that I’m pregnant right now, (which would be supported by this morning’s nausea and dry heaving around the house).

This may sound harsh, but pregnant women d-i-s-g-u-s-t me. And I realize how horrible that sounds, but come on, there is nothing “beautiful” or “glowing” about a swollen, waddling woman about to squeeze a spawn out of her peesh.

Although, it’s apparent that this belief is not supported by the masses, or the media, because I am constantly bombarded by pregnant women. For instance, how am I expected to ever purge from my mind the image of Kate (of Jon and Kate Plus 8) laying on her back with a ginormus stomach wrapped in saran wrap, or—and I don’t know which is worse—the image of her sagging stomach after popping out six kids. For heaven’s sake, I watched a C-Section this morning; I watched an eight pound screaming human cut out of a woman’s stomach. I’m scarred for life!

So, this post is simply to ask that the human race stop procreating, because really, it’s become quite a bother.

On Being a Bastard

As you may, or may not know; at the delicate age of twelve years, seventeen hours, thirty two minutes and fourteen seconds, I learned—from a drunken woman—that the man I thought was my father, was indeed not my father. Instead, as she further explained; my father, my biological father that is, was actually my “father’s” married best friend, who she, (my mother, The Beast as I loving refer to her), slept with in an act of revenge.

Needless to say, this was traumatizing, on many levels, for many years. But as time passed, I stopped wondering why and started wondering what.

What kind of diseases am I unknowingly at a higher risk of developing because of this dude’s genes? What if generations upon generations of women in his family have died of breast cancer before the age of forty? What if they exhibit a strong susceptibility for rheumatoid arthritis? Alzheimer’s? Parkinson’s?

At times these thoughts consume me; so much so, that I’m considering hiring a private investigator. I mean really, if you think about it, it’d just be another medical expense, an investment in preventative care; that, and I’ve always wondered what he looks like.

Back to the (Barely) Living

As a consequence of recent events, I’ve developed an arm condition. Yes, an arm condition, which is odd in and of itself because the arm is not a body part I typically have issues with. Usually, I try to focus my efforts on more vital areas, like the brain or heart or liver, but nonetheless, desperate times call for desperate measures and I in turn have developed an arm condition. A condition I’ve coined as “Cold Arm;” a derivative of Cold Shoulder.

Now, when I say this condition is a derivative of Cold Shoulder, I do not mean of the phrase, (i.e., I give my mom the cold shoulder because she’s a conniving bitch), no, that’s not what I mean at all, I mean it in the medical sense of the term; “Cold Shoulder” or “Frozen Shoulder,” as it’s sometimes called, (i.e., I can’t move my fucking arm).

I was first exposed to this syndrome a couple years ago on a family cruise through the Bahamas when Rey’s mother became literally paralyzed at the thought of spending ten uninterrupted days with her parents and five sisters. We laughed about it at the time, I mean “Cold Shoulder” really? You’re so stressed you can’t move your shoulder? But as I sit here with my arm glued to my side, I’m suddenly thinking it’s not so damn funny.

Life’s a Bitch

Eight years ago, almost to the day, my brother woke up, stumbled into my mom’s room and peed in her closet while emphatically requesting that someone remove the socks he wasn’t wearing. That day marked the first of an eight year battle; yesterday that battle ended.

Mental Health, meet the garbage disposal…

When I lazily opened my eyes at 8:30 a.m. this morning and rolled out of bed, I had no idea. As I sipped my pumpkin coffee and watched CNN, I had no idea. When I headed out—on what I thought was an ordinary Saturday—for some fall clothes shopping, I—you guessed it—had no idea. I had no fucking idea, as I sat down for my first glass of scotch, that later that day, I’d be writing the following email to my supervisor:

* * *

Natalia:
My brother was just given one week to live. I’m on my way to the bay area now to spend some time with him, I plan to be back to work on Thursday. I’m sorry to communicate this to you via email but I’m too emotional to talk by phone. I’ll be available on my cell, if you or anyone else needs to get in touch. Thanks.

No and No

To answer all of your thoughtful emails—which I was too rude and lazy to respond to—no, I am not cured, and no, I am not dead, although I feel like I might die right now, and it’s not because of the tumor in my neck or the mass that’s smashing my brain against my skull, and it’s not because of my unwanted pregnancy or the rapidly progressing mouth cancer that I’ve developed from excessive margarita intake—and no, it’s not because of this uncontrollably long run-on sentence—it’s because last night, I learned—wait for it—that my little brother has leukemia.

Leu-fucking-kemia. Do I need to say anymore? Do I need to say that this is a huge—and just because I resisted the urge to hit caps lock when I typed “huge” does not mean it’s not an enormously huge “huge”—blow to my mental health?

I will say one thing, if there was ever any chance of me beating hypochondria, it’s not gonna happen now.

What Love Sounds Like

When Rey and I venture more than two minutes from a local hospital, I feel the compulsion to brief him on the “state of my health.” I do this so that in the event I unexpectedly lose consciousness, he can serve as my liaison with the hospital, and hopefully facilitate a speedy and accurate diagnosis. Yesterday, when we set out for our daily hike, it was no different.

As we approached the mouth of the trail, I customarily rattled off my recent problems with consistent headaches and unforgiving chest pain. I continued on about random, painful bruising, then finished up with a spelling of my new birth control prescription and a quick note on how the medication could possibly be causing blood clotting.

I paused to catch my breath, and what did my loving boyfriend look at me and say?

“Man, I hope I’m around when you actually do kick the bucket.”

Back to the Basics

I’ve mentioned before that the birth of my hypochondria was spurred almost nine years ago when a rare, soupy tumor was found residing in the left frontal lobe of my younger brother’s brain.

Up until that point, I had led a fairly naïve existence. Given, I had my “irrational fears”—as any child does—I mean honestly, what child isn’t afraid to hang their foot off the side of the bed, (out of fear it will be violently devoured by a lurking monster)?

What kind of kid doesn’t constantly hold the prospect of sudden alien abduction in the back of their mind?

And really? What young girl doesn’t have the deep-rooted belief that someone in her midst—read her unsuspecting eye doctor—is a maniacal serial killer waiting for the right moment to kidnap, rape and bludgeon her to death?

Okay, I can admit it: the serial-killer-eye-doctor-obsession was a little on the morbid side; but until my brother’s fateful diagnosis, I had never really felt the chill of my own—or anyone else’s—mortality.

When confronted with the reality that disease—and therefore death—could strike anyone at anytime, including children (as it had done in front of my very own eyes), I did what any rational person would do; (no, not embrace the beauty of life), I too “developed” a “brain tumor.”

And as my brother went under the knife, I went through the CAT Scan. And as his tumor shrunk through radiation, I was informed mine never existed.

Time went by. My brother continued to battle his tumor. I moved on to new diseases. Strokes and heart attacks and blood clots and organ failure and lung collapse and cirrhosis and MS and West Nile Virus and lymphoma and the litany goes on, but for the last month or so, I dared to begin to think I was “cured.”

Then it happened...

Shooting head pains. Nausea. Confusion. Blurry vision. Fatigue. Day after day after day.

My brain tumor is back, and it's not alone; a blood clot and tuberculosis rode in on its coattails.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around…

I’m exactly sixteen days into my twenty-two day sentence of Rey-lessness. That’s right; my loving boyfriend hopped a plane to Asia and left me behind, ALL BY MYSELF.

Now, being ALL BY MYSELF poses several problems. The first being, I’m scared shitless to be ALL BY MYSELF. The most important being, I might go into anaphylactic shock and they’ll be no one there to administrator the EpiPen. Or, more realistically, I might choke on my Miss Vickie’s jalapeño chip and they’ll be no one there to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

Truthfully, Rey probably doesn’t even know the Heimlich maneuver, and sadly I don’t own an EpiPen (although I really should invest in one). And while I’ve been able to mostly overcome the being scared shitless part—by carrying a tool belt adorned with mace, a hammer and a butcher knife—I haven’t been able to overcome the need to verbalize my afflictions. Hence the reason Rey’s voicemail is no longer accepting messages.

This need to verbalize my imminent death, paired with my anti-social tendencies, has left me in a real bind. I need to vocalize that I'm dying, but I have no one to vocalize it to.

It’s ironic really; I like to believe that hypochondria is a lonely plight. Until left alone, I didn’t realize there were other players in the game. A hypochondriac needs someone to profess their hypochondria to, (at least in my case).

So here I am, to proclaim to the world that I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe because I have a blood clot in my lung caused by my new blood-thickening birth control prescription. And, you’re never gonna believe it, but I’m really dying this time.

Whew…

Another Close Encounter

According to plan, I should be at my doctor’s office right about now, getting a shot of the HPV vaccination by a bitchy Filipino nurse named Joan. Instead, I’m sitting here choking on the generic aspirin I swallowed over an hour ago and thanking the good lord that I stumbled across the truth about the vaccine in time.

I was originally scheduled for the shot last Friday, as a twofer with my ringworm—which actually isn’t ringworm—checkup, but God is good, and they were out of the deadly serum.

Their shipment arrived the following Monday and I naively rescheduled my appointment with death for today. I carried on about my business throughout the week and nonchalantly mentioned the shot to Rey on Wednesday. “Are you nervous?” he asked.

Nervous! I couldn’t believe it. Why—aside from the fact that I’m always nervous—would I be nervous? I was overjoyed! I was essentially getting the closest thing to a cancer vaccine. Or so my doctor had led me to believe.

Rey’s words stuck with me through that night and into the next day, and finally on Thursday evening (less than a day before my appointment), I—cue scary music—googled the vaccine.

“Deaths Associated with HPV Vaccine Start Rolling In” was all I needed to see. My innocence was gone and I knew, before I followed the link, that that bitchy nurse wasn’t getting anywhere near me. Before I blacked out, words like blood clot, heart problems, paralysis, and seizures were strewn across my screen.

I awoke this morning with one thought in my mind; to cancel that appointment. And that’s exactly what I did, (then followed it up with a false promise to reschedule next week).

With All Due Respect

In a world where I drink my cup of coffee over a headline that reads, “9-year-old girl's twin is found inside her stomach,” hypochondria is the only rational response.

Good News, and—of course—Bad News

I went to the doctor’s office yesterday to have the growing skin cancer on my thigh inspected. What started out about a month ago as what I thought was a zit, has steadily matured into a scaly, red, quarter-sized growth on my outer left thigh.

So, I did what any good hypochondriac would do; I called my doctor’s office and emphatically told his staff that I was dying of skin cancer. They reluctantly squeezed me in for yesterday afternoon.

I sat on the table, with pants off and shoes on, as the bald doctor hemmed and hawed over the growth on my leg. After about two minutes of inspecting my pasty extremities, he looked at me blankly and said, “I don’t know.” Which is when I was forced to take the lead.

“MRSA?”

Blank stare...

“Cancer?”

“No...”

It was about there that he ended the guessing game—and hold the phone—asked me if I wanted a biopsy. I nearly fell off the table! A doctor offering me a biopsy? There is a god!

Of course I denied, but only after he explained that the said biopsy would leave a huge gouge in my leg for an infection that could probably be treated with a course of anti-fungal cream.

Then he turned the game on me:

“Do you have a cat?”

Odd question but, “Yes.”

“Have you noticed any bald spots in her fur?”

“As a matter of fact, I have.”

“I think you may have ringworm.”

And there it is, the bad news.

Taking Time Out of My Day to Give WebMD a Big Middle Finger

Not only does that wretched excuse of a site frequently impose itself on the state of my mental and physical health, but today it went a step further, and intruded on my love life.

There I was, minding my own business, searching WannaBeMD for a new and exciting disease, when I spotted the “Most Popular Stories” list on the right hand side of the page. It looked something like this:

1. 11 Secrets All Men Keep
2. Lose 10 Pounds in 3 Days?
3. The Flat Belly Diet
4. 5 Weight Gain Shockers
6. 12 Embarrassing Body Problems
7. Sex Myths vs. Facts
8. Benefits of Drinking Water Oversold?
9. 7 Pains You Shouldn’t Ignore
10. How to Survive Spring Allergy Season

Any guesses on which one I clicked?

Now, one might think that I’d beeline for number ten, considering I am a hard-core allergy suffer (who could use some survival tips, if not just for the sake of those around me). Or number two even, since ten is the exact number of pounds I need to lose—and who wouldn’t want to do it in three days? Ahhh, or number nine! Sweet number nine is right up my alley, not that I ignore any pains, (but I must admit, I’ve read that one before). So, I went for el numero uno: 11 Secrets All Men Keep.

I don’t know what I was expecting; maybe something along the lines, of “We actually do like it when you pluck our eyebrows, even though we squirm like babies.” But what I wasn’t expecting was this:

“Secret #1: Yes, we fall in lust 10 times a day...”

Okay, being the jealous girlfriend—as much as I hate to admit it—that I am, I should’ve stopped there, but instead, I continued on.

“If the oldest question in history is "What's for dinner?" the second oldest is "Were you looking at her?" The answer: Yes -- yes, we were.” (emphasis added)

Really? Why don’t you elaborate on that.

‘"When a woman walks by, even if I'm with my girlfriend, my vision picks it up,''’ says Doug LaFlamme, 28, of Laguna Hills, California. "'I fight the urge to look, but I just have to. I'm really in trouble if the woman walking by has a low-cut top on...It's not that I want to make a move on her,'" says LaFlamme. "'Looking at other women is like a radar that just won't turn off."'

Doug LaFlamme, I say this to you: I hope someday your “vision” will pick me up as I lovingly shove my fist down your throat.

Glutton for Punishment, (Among Other Things)

I knew I should’ve put down the mouse when I read, ‘“This somber series of portraits taken of people before and after they had died is a challenging and poignant study.”’

I knew I should have walked away from the computer when I saw, “These photos are simultaneously haunting and beautiful.”

But apparently what I know I should do, and what I actually do are two very different things.

I was drawn to that turquoise link like a moth drawn to light. And before I knew what was happening, the “before and after death” portraits were flashing across my screen.

I think I reached the fifth dead person before I noticed a large pool of sweat on my keyboard, and it wasn’t long after that that I slipped into a full blown panic attack. I spent most of that night crying hysterically and thinking of nothing but death.

It’s been several days since the “viewing” and I’m just now able to talk about it.

It wasn’t the photos, so much, that got to me. In hindsight, they weren’t that disturbing at all. In fact, (though it sounds insensitive), most of the people were fairly old, and they looked peaceful in death—not terribly different from the photos in which they were breathing.

What got to me was the fact that these people knew they were dying. And that sounds somewhat ridiculous, because seriously, we all know we’re dying. I certainly do. But these people really knew they were dying and knew what they were dying from. It just hit me. It hit me hard to imagine what it would feel like to look into the camera for your pre-death portrait. It still gives me the chills.

If anyone shares my morbid fascination, the before and after portraits can be found here.

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...