In Which I Almost Died (Only Not Really....)

Those who know me, know I have a small-ish fear of catching some horrible disease and dying. And to be fair, there are gross little germs and spores lurking on every keyboard, door knob and phone - we all know it's true.  It amazes me that we can get through a day without something going horribly wrong (like your body forgetting to breathe, or your red blood cells forgetting to reproduce, or *catching* a strep infection and having to have your leg amputated at the knee) let alone a whole lifetime. 

I know we all have an expiry date, and that date is predetermined from the day we're born.  But still, I would like to be able to have a guarantee that I will be around at least until my son is able to find his underwear (which has been in the same drawer since potty training, and he still cannot find it), and take a shower without being told to do so (I figure I'm doing well asking for that, seeing as how he's a *boy* and they're a little slow in the whole hygiene department).  I read a story about this guy who gets speared in the head, like with a spear and walks into the ER like he has a hangnail, then walks out a few days later with a little loss of vision but nothing else.  You read other stories how some woman trips at the mall and bumps her head, and dies from a brain hemorrhage.  Moral of the story:  When it's your time to go, it's your time to go.   

That doesn't mean I don't worry about it.  I worry, because worrying is what I do best.  Unfortunately, this means that things like a Spa day are somewhat bittersweet.  Never know whether that fuchsia pink nail polish was worth the staph infection you caught from it.  You never know if the shampoo you use that promises silky smooth hair and smells like coconuts, is also teeming with parabens - which we just found out are like, super harmful and cancer causing.  I'm just saying, it would have been nice to know this before we faithfully used said product for the past 15 years.  Sugar, they say now, helps cancer grow faster.  Cancer cells feed off sugar.  Sugar.  Can you believe it?  I put sugar in everything.  How, I ask, can something so sweet be so sinister?  It's just not fair. 

So anyways, because I'm leery of any horrid diseases sneaking up on me, I'm usually pretty alert to what my body is telling me.  Some may call this being a hypochondriac, but I just think it's being well informed.  Having said that, if I went to the doctor every time I thought something was wrong, I would have to quit my full time job, so I could go to the doctor every other day.  So I wait.  And I wait.  And if it (whatever it might be) is still there after a week, I figure it's probably not my imagination and therefore a *real* problem.  But then I wait another week or so, just to make sure it doesn't go away on its own.  If after 3 weeks, it's still there, I start asking other people if they've ever experienced something like that - because, who knows, it might be normal...After 4 weeks, I google my symptoms.  Okay, who am I kidding, I google my symptoms on the first day, but after 4 weeks, I google them again.  After 5 weeks, if it's still not gone, I make an appointment with the doctor for the following week. So 6 weeks after I first notice something, I finally make it to the doctor.  But seriously, I've already diagnosed myself, and now I need them to prescribe some medication I can't pronounce (or prescribe myself....) or do some horribly invasive test to confirm my worst fears.

With that, I will tell you that I have been living with kidney stones for at least 6 weeks.  Ahhhhh, I know what you're thinking, those are super painful....like worse than giving birth.  Yup, that is what I've heard as well.  Turns out all my kidney stones are actually so small they pass without me hardly noticing them at all.  So far (you say pessimist, I say realist...)  Also turns out I have a cyst on my ovary that is the size of my ovary.  And this is where the pain is coming from.  This would seem like the perfect time to panic, except for the fact that my google search tells me that 1 in 4 women of child bearing years gets at least one cyst in their lifetime, and they usually come and pop without anyone the wiser.  So, again it's not a big deal.  Mine just doesn't want to pop. 

So 6 weeks of worry, then another week to wait for the CT scan, and then another week to wait for the results, and I find I have nothing to worry about.  That's 8 weeks of needless worry

At least until September when I have a follow up ultrasound to see if it's grown or popped or if we need to do a biopsy. 

But, again, nothing to worry about....

...right??