Hypochondria

“Lump? I don't feel any lump.”
~ My incompetent doctor on cancer

Any day now, this could be me.

Fellow Uncyclopedians, this is farewell. This is when you will remember dismissing my concerned forum posts about the twitching nerve in my eye as nothing to worry about, remember calling my severe fatigue "staying up too late", and ordered me off the forums for announcing the worsening of my symptoms, progressing to the sorry state I am in today. Yes, I just got back from the doctor again, but no, it didn't go like you said it would this time: I have something. Yes, I do have something, and the name she gave me was hypochondria. That many letters in the name of a disease cannot be a good thing. I give myself six months to live, and only because the twitch went away a few minutes after I posted about it. I pray that you, fellow Uncyclopedians, will be more understanding than my doctor, who prescribed me nothing to combat this plague, not even painkillers for my illness. Yes, that's right...while she never said it aloud, I have a feeling that this is because no drug exists that can help what is coming. Already, I feel it in my legs...which leads to my first symptom, joint pain.

My Symptoms

Joint Pain

Like on those funky arthritis commercials...there's an idea...one can have two chronic diseases, right?

The most recent development, and one of the more worrying. Despite my efforts implemented as of yesterday to improve my health by exercising more rather than spending entire days browsing Web MD, the advent of a daily run around the block was met by immediate protest by my decaying body. The morning after the first of these runs, I was horrified at the stiffness and pain in my vastus lateralis as I lifted myself out of bed. It has been four hours, and still, when my left leg is in motion or bent at an angle more acute than the usual sitting or walking, pain occurs. Four hours. This may be permanent, I thought - hence my self-instigated trip to the emergency room this morning.

Abdominal Discomfort (upper)

I said discomfort because it isn't really pain, exactly. It's more of a slightly, vaguely acidic sensation. I cannot eat my daily extra hot vegetarian curry without almost immediately suffering this symptom. Who knows when the discomfort will spread to milder foods? Everything I eat? Will it eventually worsen, becoming so severe that my ability to eat is impeded? This, my friends, is what I must lay awake thinking about each night. Speaking of laying awake:

Me trying very very hard to fall asleep.

Insomnia

Since around the time I came to Uncyclopedia (or discovered Web MD...I don't quite recall. See Dementia.), my nights have extended later and later. I go on an editing spree (mostly health-related pages), or perhaps read through some of the featured articles and, before I know it...three o'clock, AM! To make matters worse, the morning after, I don't even wake up in the morning--more like noon, or even one o'clock. This is at least nine hours, or so I counted, one more than the eight hours the average person requires. This effect of the disease may be tied into my fatigue.

And that's not all!

It may be significant to note that the very latest nights occur when I have discovered a new disease that I may have. These nights are wrought with tremors, increased heart rate, and inability to stop worrying that may be neurologically related.

Dermatological Lesions (early stages)

See? Right there! SEE?

If you will, observe the diagram I prepared on the right for an example of the disfiguring lesions creeping over my skin. See it? It's that lightened spot that I circled (the arrows help, too). At first I went a month thinking it was skin cancer, one of the longest months in my life. Although melanoma is said to manifest itself as a particularly dark, mole-like spot, one should never doubt new strains. But today, my doctor ruled that out when she expressed confusion after I showed her this very spot. Great. We all know what this means--the condition behind the spot must be an unknown one, perhaps worse than cancer, perhaps worse than any doctor has ever seen. These occasions are probably very common, but covered up by the government to pacify the masses...you, too may be next.

Any doctors in the house?

I am currently perusing my phone book for a dermatologist, skipping over no number in case the next doctor I see doesn't know their stuff, either. I may end up visiting them all, and if no one figures this out (likely), I dread being forced to resign myself to my home, alone, watching the lesions spread and increase in severity, waiting for merciful death to take me.

Concerning this chilling manifestation of the hypochondriac circle of symptoms, I cannot lie and say that I don't fear having no one to turn to.

Sinus Congestion

I wouldn't be too worried about this one normally, but it happens to me over a worryingly prolonged period of time around March, April, and May each year. I think I got rid of it for good, and then the next year...relapse. I need to look into this more to make sure it isn't serious.

Dementia

First it's your car keys, they say, and then it's your phone number, your name, your friend's names...well, today I took step one into a tragic neurological decline. The keys were in my desk drawer - try as I might, I don't remember putting them there! What the hell!? I'm not even thirty yet! If not one of the dreaded symptoms of hypochondria, this might be one of those rare Alzheimer's cases that happen in the young. I saw a program about this on TV once; it's two percent of cases...I think. Oh, dear. What did I tell you?

Fatigue (progressive)

Now, this...this is the big one. A grim sounding name for one of the grimmest symptoms there is. Fatigue is always a sign of all of those diseases you really don't want to get: cancer, heart attacks, chronic fatigue, lupus, pneumonia...fatigue could mean any of them. To be specific, the fatigue I experience sharpens after a run, showing my body's obvious refusal to help itself, and goes so far as to affect my progress at work after some of my later nights voting on VFH.

Goodbye, Cruel World

Things don't look too bright for me, as I might as well be being treated by this doctor.

Who am I kidding? You won't understand. No one understands. I've got better things to do with my final days than waste my time on your deaf ears. And isn't that what you wanted me to say all along?