If you can't cure it, name it

I have a new addiction!!!   It has only really developed as I was moving from my 50's to my 60's.

I'm not  happy about it and will probably have to work on breaking it.  12-steps will work on this one as well.  I'm addicted to "worst-case scenario self-diagnosing".

When I was in my teens and twenties, my head could fall off and I'd stuff it back on my neck with duck tape and keep going.   Now, if I break a fingernail, I immediately think osteoporosis.  So I had a ball over the weekend -- I was like a one-man self-contained emergency room.   Wrong on all counts, of course.  But, then again, I didn't bill myself outrageously.

Saturday I had a small pain in my back.  So far so good.  I usually try to find small backpain on Saturday in hopes of avoiding yard work.  But as I mowed the lawn.  (And I'm embarassed to say that I now have a  riding lawnmower -- probably because Karen figured it would take away the small back pain excuse.) 

But this time the pain was worse when I was sitting down.  And it was only on one side.  Sirens wailing in my brain, I instantly turn into WORST CASE SCENARIO SELF-DIAGNOSING MAN!   Faster than a speeding bullet, I decide that I have a kidney stone!   Oh my God!  Help!  I'm going to be in anguish!

I run inside (after finishing the lawn, of course) and lie on the couch to review symptoms.  But they are changing!  The pain is no longer in my kidney, thank Goodness!  But now it is all the way down my leg.

Heart attack!!!   WCSSD-MAN is leaping tall buildings!   But there is no nausea, no shortness of breath, and my chest is just fine.  But parts of my left foot are getting numb.

Blood clot!!  I limp very carefully upstairs to do some internet research, moving slowly so as not to dislodge the clot and suffer sudden death.   If it is in an artery, my foot should be turning white.  If it is in a vein, my foot should be blowing up like a balloon.  

Stroke?  Some rare jungle amoeba eating me up from inside?   Where is Dr. House when you need him?

By Monday, I had sucked all the fun I could out of this thing and took it to my family doctor, knowing full well that he would put me in the hospital for a week to run esoteric tests.   Instead, he just said, "Piriformis syndrome."  

Huh?   How had I missed that one?  Maybe because I never went to Medical School. 

Apparently my buttock muscles are squeezing on my sciatic nerve which responds by sending all sorts of weird signals to my brain.  

BAGMAN:  "In  other words, you're a bigger ass than we thought!"

So I get a prescription for muscle relaxants and I don't even have a good excuse not to go to work today. 

Wait a minute.  I have a small itch in my ear -- probably just wax.  Or maybe it could be....BRAIN TUMOR!! 

BUTLER:  "Hey, Mark.  Maybe you should just look up Hypochondria?"

Is there a doctor in the house?

Oh my God, I think I may have contracted hypochondria.

Saturday morning, I woke up with fatigue, a dry mouth and a slightly sore back. When I stood up, I felt momentarily light-headed. When I went into the kitchen, the idea of eating Cheerios was not appealing. I narrowed my self-diagnosis down to heart attack, esophageal cancer (which I’ve recently added to my on-going long-range early warning system for reasons most of you will guess), and kidney failure.

This was confirmed for me a few minutes later when Karen reminded me that we were planning to spend the day at my sister-in-law’s house weeding the yard, planting bushes, and putting out pine straw.

I took one large bite of Cheerios and threw the rest of the bowl away. Karen asked me if I was feeling all right. I said I was fine but made sure that I paused for a very long time, pressed the small of my back, winced, stood up extremely slowly while swaying a little bit so she would ask, “Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure,” I said going over and lying on the couch.

“Do we need to take you to the hospital?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I said. “Give me a few minutes,” I said, shutting my eyes.

Yes, I think I may have contracted hypochondria. I have become more susceptible to hypochondria recently for several reasons. A: We’ve been watching lots of old episodes of “House” recently. (If you don’t know the show, it is about a weird genius of a doctor who deals with strange weird diseases). B: I am at an age when many of my friends both in real life and on Blogspot are dealing with life-threatening illnesses. And C: the weather in South Carolina is becoming hot and humid which makes yard work less fun.

Driving over to my sister-in-laws house, my symptoms worsened. I became convinced that I could not eat and I managed to discover several other places where I had pain, including one in my chest area which made the diagnosis of heart attack more probable. Unloading tools from the car, I added sweats to the symptom list, ignoring the fact that it was 85 degrees and humid.

Several members of my sister-in-law’s family were there a big lunch was served before the work party began. I was afraid to eat much since I decided that if I had trouble swallowing, the diagnosis of esophageal cancer might gain over heart attack. My sister-in-law is not a nurse but went to nursing school for awhile and is the family's resident expert. She wanted to take my blood pressure.

I declined but, after not eating either breakfast or lunch, the nausea increased which convinced me it was a heart attack and I needed to lie down.

I slept all afternoon while wife, sister-in-law, and cousins worked in the yard. When we returned home in the evening, I went to bed and had trouble falling asleep. Must be some kind of insomnia, probably based on some rare tropical disease. Swine flu?

Sunday, I moved as slowly as possible all day so as not to stress my cardio-vascular system.

This morning I have to go to work where I sit behind a desk in an air conditioned office and drink coffee. At the moment I have no symptoms that I can find except for an intense guilt about not having done anything all weekend except whine.

I think I have hypochondria. Of course, it could just be laziness, but I would hate to think I am that manipulative. So tonight, I will come home and watch House and see if I can scare myself some more.

Meanwhile, I think that Karen is considering that the best course of medical action might be to administer three quick kicks in the butt.