It’s a Beautiful Story

We’re still on vacation. Except by now we are in Nashville. We’re seeing a show and generally acting up for a few days.

I re-read this post and knew immediately where the the blog post title and the story title came from. The movie Splash. The scene where John Candy tells Tom Hanks that he had a Penthouse letter published. He said it was a beautiful story and it was called A Lesbian No More.

Anyway, here is another recycled blog post from Rage Your Way Thin.

***

I have some inspiration for you today. I know that traditionally, my blog posts are either some heavy shit I’m dealing with, some snarky shit or maybe a little hope here and there, but I have never aspired to be inspirational. Until today. I have a beautiful story called:

A Hypochondriac No More

I come from a long and distinguished line of hypochondriacs. We’re good at it. I’ve worked on perfecting my art over my decades and I must say, the advent of the internet has made being a hypochondriac easier than ever. I used to worry about a few diseases here and there when I was younger. Cancer, of course. Cancer is king. I also worried a bit about MS. Perhaps a mild case of insanity. Then we got the internet. WebMD is amazing. I can put in a few symptoms and all of a sudden I have dozens, sometimes hundreds of possibilities.

Well, being a hypochondriac gains me dick. And not in a good way. So, I am going to attempt to give it up. Here is my list of ailments that I am giving up.

Sleeping Sickness – Okay, I don’t really think I’m going to contract sleeping sickness. But when I go for a number of days feeling exhausted, I’m always afraid that I have mono. Never mind that I already had mono once. I don’t know for sure, but I think that it’s either impossible or rare to get mono more than once. I would look it up, but as I’ve never been overly concerned about accuracy on this blog, I don’t care all that much. That being said, I worry about getting mono again. I got mono when I was 38 years old. 38 fucking years old. My doctor said he had never seen someone that old get mono. Do you have any idea how many jokes I heard about hanging out at the high school football practice?  I’m not going to get mono again. I just fucking need to sleep better.

Stroke – This one really isn’t all that far fetched. I’ve worked for the same company for 5 years. The support staff is relatively small. Under 100. In those 5 years, I know two women who have had a stroke. Both younger than me. It’s not like I’m an easy going person or anything. I’m fucking high strung as fuck. It’s entirely possible that I could have a stroke. On the other hand, I am changing my diet and while my work outs have been haphazard at best lately, I know I’m going to get back to it. Also, if I’m gonna have a stroke, then I guess I will have one. Worrying about it won’t change a damn thing. Even if I get a really sharp pain in my head.

Ovarian Cancer – This is the biggie. This is the Queen of all my made-up illnesses. This is the one that can wake me up from a dead sleep. One of the symptoms ovarian cancer is excessive gas and bloating. In the past few weeks, I have been making some pretty major changes in my eating habits. One this that I am eating a lot of these days are beans. It seems that on the days that I have beans at lunch, in the afternoon…it’s a little tiny bit possible that I become mildly gassy. Also, in addition to adding beans to my diet, I’ve been eating a lot of steamed broccoli and cauliflower. The fact that my moments of bloating always coincide with eating food that causes, well, issues that the male of the species finds hilarious does not stop me from worrying. From now on, on those days, I will stop fretting about ovarian cancer. I will not call my doctor and beg to have my ovaries removed before it is too late.

Those are the big 3. During cold and flu season, I worry about whatever flu has Made the headlines. Oh, I’ll pretend that I’m not worried. I’ll probably make fun it. I’ll even be derisive about it, but don’t think for one fucking minute that part of me isn’t chewing her fingernails over the possibility of catching it. 

This is really no fun at all. Being a hypochondriac isn’t the glamorous life one would expect. It makes your stomach hurt and it wastes perfectly good worrying time on something enormously stupid. Better to worry about robots taking over the world. 

By the way…my family has attempted to ban me from WebMD. I tell them that I don’t look anymore, then we laugh and laugh.

That is the end of my story. Keep me company, I’m not the only who worries about getting sick, right?

Current me here..I am kind of impressed that I talked about being gassy. I’ve been uptight about bodily functions for most of my life. I don’t remember writing this, but I am surprised by what I said. Maybe I haven’t been giving myself enough credit. I also don’t eat broccoli or cauliflower now because I can’t take the stomach aches anymore.

We’ll be home on Saturday. I will try to have some brand spanking new material for you soon. 

11 Thoughts.

  1. I hope y’all enjoy your time here in Music City. I hope the show is good and y’all take a few minutes to laugh about the building that looks like Batman.
    And hypochondria is not necessarily a bad thing. I’d actually say it’s better than the complete opposite end of the spectrum, the “I can just put a band-aid on this severed artery.”
    My father once woke up in the middle of the night and was convinced he was having a heart attack but didn’t wake up my mother.
    Okay, technically that’s not an example of the opposite of hypochondria. That’s an example of how scary my mother is if you wake her out of a deep sleep for any reason.

  2. One of the symptoms of Ovarian Cancer is gassiness?! I thought it was just a side effect of one of my meds. I’d love to bond with you more around being a hypochondriac, but I’ve got to take a Xanax and call my OB/GYN now.

  3. My mom is a nurse and has banned all of her children from using WebMD…..instead we call her at all hours of the day and night to ask random questions about our health and the health of our children. That’s her own fault!

  4. Yes. The damn veggies do make you gassy. I’m not sure how this is supposed to coincide with the whole healthy lifestyle. Do all healthy, skinny people just get together and have gas release parties? And then pity us the constipated fatties. I do wonder.

  5. So funny! Nothing worse than being ashamed of natural bodily functions especially when one accidentally lets out a FART (I even have a hard time using the word fart) in, well, shall we say, intimate moments… Do you know how hard it is to try and hold it in??? Sometimes they just sneak out! ha!

    My ex-husband was/is a hypochondriac. Mostly I make fun of him but it’s also so sad watching him Google his “ailments” and convincing himself that he has brain tumors, cancer, west nile virus or early onset alzheimers, etc.

    I used to sorta be a hypochondriac but I’ve stopped. I just recently had a biospy on my boob and I didn’t worry about it at all! My ex was VERY worried for me though. That made me laugh. As I told him, if it does end up being something, THEN I’ll worry about it, but there’s no sense wasting my time worrying about something that probably won’t happen anyway. And that is my new attitude about everything these days. For 54 years, I’ve been a chronic worrier, but no more!! I’ve given it up. I can’t change in advance what may or may not happen to me. I just roll with it now… It makes life so much easier and a LOT more fun!

  6. Don’t have a stroke. Just don’t. They’re totally overrated, and even so their reviews are BAD. I had one. It sucked donkey balls. Maybe you could channel your hypochondria into keeping an eye on your blood pressure and cholesterol levels? Sort of reminds me of a Meat Puppets lyric from “Comin’ Down”:
    There are things there worth avoiding.

  7. Statistically thinking, if two women in your office have had strokes, I think your chances of having a stroke are much slighter, not increased. Unless your office is causing the strokes. Which I suppose would suggest an increased chance…

    There I go not helping again. Enjoy Nashville.

  8. Hope you had a splendiferous holiday. I must visit Nashville one day, though the chances are becoming slimmer by the week, unlike me!
    🙂

  9. I had a very mild case of shingles in May — really, it was just 3-4 lesions in a 1″x2″ area on my side. However, I was so shocked that I actually contracted shingles (because I always felt it was a feeble old person’s illness — which is why it never even crossed my mind to get the vaccine!), that now I think every little bump I get must be shingles. A couple of mosquito bites on my ankle? Shingles. Strange lump and tenderness at the base of my skull? Shingles. Rash on my hand from the new lotion I’m apparently allergic to? Must be shingles.

    Here’s the kicker — even getting the vaccine will not prevent shingles. It just makes your case of shingles milder than if you didn’t have it. I can’t win.

    • My mom had shingles and she said it was horrible. She’s kind of a badass when it comes to being sick or injured, she doesn’t complain and it rarely gets her down, but shingles knocked her on her ass. I don’t ever want them. I am not the badass my mother is.

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