Between the ads on television, newspapers and magazines; the stories on the news and on other television shows; and my mother’s doctors I am turning into a hypochondriac. None of those ads or stories used to bother me until I realized that I am now a single parent and that I need to stay alive as long as possible to be here for my boys. Once that hit me I seemed to start suffering from every disease and illness out there and felt the need to take every medication advertised except for the one that could cause a 4 hour erection.
I have fibromyalgia. I do better than most people with it and unless I am in a major flare up, I don’t think about it. I am seldom sick, and even though I am obese, I consider myself to be fairly fit. I walk at least 15 miles a week; doing 3 miles M-F and I try to pick up some extra miles on the weekends. Our vacations almost always include several days of hiking. So even though I know I am obese and I am not truly healthy, I consider myself to be in good shape, however, this constant battering of my psyche by the drug companies makes me feel like I should be on life support just to get out of bed.
It is bad enough that I seem to have every symptom listed for whatever illness the current drug advertised on television can alleviate, but now my mom’s doctor has placed a curse on me. My mom has always had very bad varicose veins. She has had at least four surgeries in my lifetime, and probably more before that, she can no longer remember. Now 36 years after her last surgery, she needs a vein procedure again. (Notice I said procedure, they no longer actually operate on the legs, a catheter is used.) At her last doctor’s visit the doctor said that he was sure I had varicose veins due to the family history and he wanted to do a work up on me after we were done with all of mom’s procedures.
At first I didn’t think much of what he said, but then I had a chance to go back into the room to get procedure instructions and I asked him how I would know if I had varicose veins. He went over some symptoms with me and I left thinking about how I didn’t have a single symptom.
I went home that afternoon and took a good look at my legs (something I haven’t done in years). I have some veins that look like varicose veins above my knees, but I thought about how I didn’t have any symptoms and I would not have the tests because that would be looking for trouble. Then I saw the ad for some kind of silent circulation problem that could cause something to happen to your heart. Since then the symptoms have not stopped. I have shooting pains down a vein in my left leg, my lower legs feel so heavy I don’t think I can lift them out of bed in the morning, my inside left ankle seems to throb with each beat of my heart, and the list goes on.
I need to get off this computer and finish my laundry so that I can get my feet up over my head to allow the vein reflux to be relieved in my varicose veins, while I watch the clock to time my trips to the bathroom to see if I have an overactive bladder, and at the same time read my latest magazine to see what drug I may need to take for my anxiety over my hypochondria. Is multi-tasking a disease?
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