My Biggest Fears

There are a lot of things I'm afraid of. Spiders, ants, ferris wheels. But the two things that keep me up at night are Aneurisms and Appendicitis. Strange, I know. But these things really freak me out. And they do, literally keep me up at night.

It's almost like my body knows I'm afraid of these things and so it toys with me. For example, last night, I crawl into bed and almost immediately I feel a pain in my right abdomen. So I lay there and toss and turn hoping I'll find the magical position to make it go away. But I never do.

Then the fear sets in. What if it's appendicitis? Should I be concerned? I don't want to ignore it for fear of it rupturing and killing me. Everyone says, oh, you'll know if you have it. So, is this me knowing? I know I have a pain in my side. What else am I going to know?

Eventually, my mind tires and I fall asleep.

The aneurism fear is a bit different. I suffer from tension headaches. They are awful. They don't hurt, but they make it entirely difficult to focus. For about three days my head feels numb. I can't think. My hand/eye coordination is worse than usual. I find it hard to type. I find it hard to read.

I've had them for years and when they first started kicking in, I thought for sure that I was going to drop dead at any moment. But did I go to the doctor? No. I didn't. Instead, I just let them come and go a couple of times a year. It wasn't until a few months ago that I self diagnosed myself with tension headaches (thanks, Internet!).

I've always been a bit of a hypochondriac. I worry that I'll go to the doctor freaking out that my appendix is about to rupture and kill me and he/she will laugh and tell me it's just gas. How humiliating.

The headaches are probably something I should look into. I'm sure I could be prescribed some better drugs to get rid of them when they occur. But, then I have to make an appointment and take time off of work and spend money on co-pays and prescriptions and that's a lot of work. So, instead, I just deal and worry that I have a tumor growing on brain.

Because, really, aneurisms have got to be the scariest thing that can happen. You can be completely happy and your brain can just decide to give up and you will have zero warning. That's terrifying.

And it keeps me up at night.