The Journal of a Hypochondriac

[evenwolf]

My senior year in high school, I was certain I would die of testicular cancer.Ã,  After seeking advice from my family, it was decided that a health practitioner shouldÃ,  examine the "area in question."Ã,  Ã, Sitting in the waiting room of the doctor's office,Ã,  I couldn't help but notice that every other patient was less than two years old.Ã,  Embarrassed to be visiting the 'wee wee' doctor, I considered skipping my appointment until a particular issue of Highlights magazine caught my eye.Ã,  Several hidden picture puzzles later, my name was called.

Now, I challenge any man to fabricate a more awkward situation than mine which actually did occur.Ã,  On top of a baloon and clown pattern examination table, I sit with my pants and underwear removed.Ã,  The doctor, who just fastened her last patient's diaper two minutes ago, now had her rubber gloved hand on my scrotum.Ã,  I tried to repress thoughts such as "this woman is actually kind of attractive" for a full ten minutes. This served the practical purpose of avoiding erections, which were very potential.Ã,  At one point I cracked and I entertained myself with the thought that maybe she only appeared indifferent and professional, but deep down she enjoyed the experience.Ã,  Ã, "Jesse, I don't feel anything.Ã,  Show me with your hand where the abnormality is."Ã,  For the next five minutes my and her hand alternated on my skin as she repeated "Here?" and I repeated "No."Ã,  This is ridiculous.Ã,  Not only have I put myself through so much embarrassment, but this woman is going to tell me I don't have cancer.Ã,  I can't NOT have cancer now.

Well I didn't.Ã,  And the only justifying afterthoughtÃ,  became "Atleast I can live comfortably without thinking my ball is going to fall off."


The issue now is hypertension.Ã,  After seeing Super Size Me, and considering my diet- I'm certain I have a dangerously high blood pressure.Ã,  Luckily, this can be treated with healthy food decisions.Ã,  And hopefully any and all "ball action" from now on will be on a volunteer basis.

Fellow AGSer, you at one point suspected yourself might die, become sick, become crippled etc.Ã,  Some of you might be actual hypochondriacs whereas I only suspect myself to be one.Ã, 

[Haddas]

Man, you should've got an erection. This story could've been much better XD.

WARNING, not for the faint of heart (or however you say it)...

I once fell and scraped my knee badly, and got a scab on it later. After 2 days I was watching TV in the living room in the dark and I was scraping the scab. I wasn't really thinking about it untill I noticed that it's not just moist that I have on my finger, it's blood! I looked at my hand, and it was completely red, I had dug 1,5 cm into my knee, the whole fingertip. I will stop here, because I still feel disgusted thinking about it.

[Darth Mandarb]

Back in '98 I went through an EXTREME case of hypochondria.

First (oddly enough) I thought I had testicular cancer.Ã,  Then it was colon cancer, a brain tumor, leuchemia, hodgekins (sp?) disease, and many more ailments.Ã,  It was a wierd fad I went through for no reason ... and all that came of it was a heap of medical bills I'm still paying for!

Now-a-days I tend to ignore EVERYthing that ails me ... because so many of my friends (back in '98) got so used to saying, "You're imagining it!" that now it's kind of the 'boy who cried wolf' syndrome.Ã,  Probably not a good thing ... but oh well.

I had good reason to suspect testicular cancer (a cyst ... I'll not elaborate!).Ã,  Turned out to be nothing but was VERY scary and started the trend.Ã,  My girlfriend (at the time) was 'needing space' so that just complicated things even more.

My eurologist was a guy, which was comforting and distrubing at the same time.Ã,  The first appointment he was doing an inspection and was teaching a new dr. the ropes ... well the new doc happened to be a 25 year old female who just happened to look like a supermodel ... I didn't stand at attention (thank god!) but I did, on several ocassions, consider asking the male dr. to step aside and let his intern get some 'hands on' experience!!

[DGMacphee]

I have a large mole on my back just below my neck. It doesn't hurt and has hair growing out of it, which means it's not in any immediate dager. However, the spot is a potential nightmare because the area is exposed to the sun. And Queensland being so bloody warm and sunny makes it difficult. Naturally, I'm shitscared about any lumps on my back.

A month or two ago, I found a huge lump on my back. You've never seen a man run for the doctors office so quickly. Luckily, it was nothing major: just an infected cyst.

However, it reminds me of when I was in my last year of high school (1998). I found a lump the size of an M&M on my willy and was so freaked by it. There I was, peak of my teenage sexual prime, and I had a lump on my dick! I gave it a small squeeze and the thing popped like a zit. An hour late, I went to see the school's doctor ASAP. Sure enough, it was nothing; just a cyst or a boil.

I tell you, when tradgey strikes and it turns out to be nothing, you thank fuck that you're alive. It's like that line from Fight Club: "His breakfast will taste better than any meal you or I have ever had." And that's how I felt: happy to be alive.

And I saw Super Size Me today. Great film. I like the way it startts off funny, then becomes scary after a certain point.

And as a side note, McDonalds put on an ad before the film where the CEO of McD's Australia said that (and I'm adlibing) "the following film shows a man who overeats and says it's not good for people. We couldn't agree more." At that point, the whole audience laughed and I thought one person shouted out "You dipshit!" Meanwhile, I booed the ad. You can really tell when a company is scared of something like "Super Size Me". They start going into serious damage control.

Also, there's a good article onSomethingAwful today (Sunday, June 27) about Super Size Me. Go read it now!

[evenwolf]

DG, I read about the Australian CEO of McD's ad before the movie.  I haven't seen the ad but I think it's smart business.  No McDonald's representitive in the US has made any effort to respond, which many consumers view as admission of guilt.

But I would probably laugh at the CEO as well, even though it was a good business strategy.

[DGMacphee]

It's not really a good business strategy. Everybody in that theatre was laughing their arses off at that guy. Sure, Aussie McD's may have thought it was a good strategy to put an ad for their business ahead of a film that condemns that business, but in reality it makes them look like fools.

I mean, he says "Yes, we agree that overeating is bad." Number one: Saying such a thing could decrease sales for those that overeat (Good for the people; bad for business). Number two: It's pandering to crowd who have gone to see a movie with a pre-existing idea that McDonalds is shitty food (and how could you not) -- It's not like they're suddenly going to go, "Hey, he agrees with the film, so maybe we should trust this guy!"

Imagine if George Bush put a similar ad before Farenheit 9/11. Imagine Bush saying: "This movie shows that a president who goes on holiday for a large percent of the time is prone to let terrosit attacks happen on the homeland, which will in turn sparks a major war against a country that had nothing to do with the initial terrorist attacks. And all because of one man's incompetency. Well, I agree!"

And not only that, I'm not going to give a McDs CEO some brownie points just because he has a good business strategy. The day he wins my trust will be when he makes a healthy and digestible burger (Note: mutant pigs will fly while scientists uncover Jimmy Hoffa's body on that same day!)

[Blackthorne]

Now, I challenge any man to fabricate a more awkward situation than mine which actually did occur. 

I recieved a kidney transplant about 9 months ago.  That's another LONG story, but during the operation, one has a "stent" placed inside their ureter, to hold it open so that after your new kidney is implanted, you can make and freely process urine.

The stent stays in for about 2-3 months sometimes, but it has to be taken.  Now, having all that surgery and spending lots of time in the hospital is embarresing enough.  I think half the staff of the hospital saw my ass hanging out of my gown as I walked the hallways over the next few days.

SO flash forward a few months, when I'm told I need to get the stent out.

Ok, no problem I say, bring it.  I can handle it.

I didn't give much thought to how they would TAKE the stent out, till it hit me.

They would take it out through that tiny hole in the top of my penis.

THEY WOULD STICK A HUGE SCOPE OR SOMETHING, AND GRASP THE STENT, AND RIP IT OUT OF ME THROUGH MY PEE HOLE!

By the time I could wrap my mind around this concept, I was already curled in a fetal position, sucking my thumb and humming the theme song from "The Smurfs".  So the nurse comes in, and says they can either do it in a clinic, where they apply some kind of novocaine gel to my private bits, and "extract" the stent.  Or they could put me in an operating room, sedate me, and extract it. 

"SEDATE MY ASS!" I screamed.

Well, concious sedation still sucks.  So, I'm laying on a table, LEGS in stirrups like I'm giving birth, this femal doctor PEERING between my legs, and I'm drunk like a college fresman, giggling and hooting as she applied a very COLD gel, to numb the area more.  Now, under concious sedation, you can still see, feel and hear things, but it's all detatched and dreamy.  They say that you don't remember anything, but at least for me that's bullshit.  Unfortunatly for me, having trained myself to maintain clarity through drug use, I saw and felt it all, though the medicines took off the painful edge, I felt her grab my penis, and shove this giant scope UP my penis, into my bladder, and probe around for the stent.  She felt it, grabbed it and BAM pulled this HUGE bloody chunk from OUT OF my PENIS.  Shortly thereafter I decided to sleep for a while.   When I woke up, I thought it was a dream.  Till I remembered it was real.

Bt

[Evil]

Jesus Thorn!

Well, I remeber my old man once joked about having HIV, and that I should be careful. It still bothers me to this day.

*Shivers*

[switcharoo]

Holy shit Blackthorne  :o reading that made me laugh hysterically and feel very sick at the same time 

[Tiki]

Ah!  Make it stop!  I'm getting scared now!

Whoo.  Now that I got that off my chest...um..I've had a few eye surgeries!  And..I had a rash a few years ago!  *shudders*

No, not diaper rash.

[Redwall]

Is it possible to be a mental hypochondriac (i.e. think you have mental illnesses)? Well, of course, besides hypochdria, which is itself a mental illness...

[Blackthorne]

Holy shit BlackthorneÃ,  :o reading that made me laugh hysterically and feel very sick at the same timeÃ, 

Yeah, that's the way I look upon my medical stories.Ã,  One part revulsion, one part humour!

[LGM]

As a kid I'd always worry about getting appendicitis.. Or some sort of skin eating disease.

I've always been afraid or worried about throwing up.. I HATE it.. and sometimes I worry about getting cancer or heart attacks..

[Blackthorne]

I've learned that worrying about illness is useless.  Sadly, we are all going to die.  Some will live longer, some will live short lives.  Illness sucks, yeah.  I lost kidney function two years ago, and I did dialysis for a year, before I was lucky enough to get a transplant from my Dad.  But I went on, and I used what time I had.(Speaking of it, the transplant went well, until during another minor surgery a doctor messed up, damaged it, sewed me back up with the damaged kidney, damaging it even more, and causing me severe pain - I almost lost the newly transplanted kidney, and it took a lot of efforts from other doctors to save me, let alone the kidney.  Now, the transplanted kidney only works pretty half-assed, but it's better than doing fucking dialysis.) So, seriously folks quit worry, and fill up your life with quality things.  The point is really to fill up the time you have with what makes you feel good and what makes you happy.  Strive to achieve those goals you set; enjoy what you do. 

Which is why I fill my life with Booze, Hookers and Cigarettes.  I'm gonna go soon, but I'm goin' happy.



Bt

[Kinoko]

Christ, Blackthorne... I don't even have a penis but that story is -painful- >_< Those are exactly the kinds of problems I'm worried about, the semi-concious insertion and removal of foreign objects to and from small orifices. Big operations wouldn't bother me so much (why on earth does everyone have to be concious for things these days? I have NO problem with being out cold for a few hours while a doctor does something I don't wanna know about).

LGM: Me too, I have a terrible fear of throwing up Always have... if I feel like it may happen, even though I know I'd feel better for it, I'll do anything to stop it.

[LordHart]

For ages, I had a lump on the side of my neck that always scared the shit out of me. One day I went to the doctors, and asked him to feel around and see what it was.

He started feeling around, and after a short time:
"That just a part of the muscle on your neck..."

I felt like such a dickhead. The thing felt like a lump, and it ended up being a muscle that I had strained which made it go that way for some reason.

Another time, I was sitting in my loungeroom on the lounge watching TV when my brother came out and past me. He looked at my head, and saw a huge baldpatch. He told me and i went to the bathroom, and had a look in the mirror, and low and behold, on the top of my head, was a patch of hair missing about 1 half inch in diameter and a perfect circle... in the middle of it, was a lump with a tiny... tiny... red dot.

My brother looked at it and said, you better go see the doctor, that could be a spider bite or something. Now, being in Australia... the country with the most venomous spiders in the world, that pretty much freaked me out... and I went up to the doctors. I went in and saw the doctor, and he said that it wasn't a spiderbite, but when "stress" gets to you then it can cause hair to fall out (this was around my final exams for high school, and my girlfriend had recently broke up with me).

I didn't quite buy this, so I asked about the lump. He said something along the lines of karma... KARMA?!?! He suggested that having an injection would bring down the swelling from the little lump and then the hair would grow back soon enough.

So, he starts going through his draw and pulls out a needle that is like half a foot long... gets the stuff he was going to inject me with and then said... sit down here so I can inject it. Stupid me, sits down... and then I feel this needle... stinging like hell... piercing my skin, the top of my head and then my head went completely numb. I couldn't talk, I felt drowsy and my eyes shut, but I wasn't tired.

"Okay, there's the shot... come back if you have any problems." Okay, sure... I have one now, can I stay... cause I can't move. They ended up calling my dad from the waiting room to carry me out, and I went home. The feeling came back about an hour later, but throughout that time, I felt like shit.

Though, the swelling did go down, and my hair grew back... so I guess it was stress after all.

[TerranRich]

Now, I challenge any man to fabricate a more awkward situation than mine which actually did occur. 

I recieved a kidney transplant about 9 months ago.  That's another LONG story, but during the operation, one has a "stent" placed inside their ureter, to hold it open so that after your new kidney is implanted, you can make and freely process urine.

The stent stays in for about 2-3 months sometimes, but it has to be taken.  Now, having all that surgery and spending lots of time in the hospital is embarresing enough.  I think half the staff of the hospital saw my ass hanging out of my gown as I walked the hallways over the next few days.

SO flash forward a few months, when I'm told I need to get the stent out.

Ok, no problem I say, bring it.  I can handle it.

I didn't give much thought to how they would TAKE the stent out, till it hit me.

They would take it out through that tiny hole in the top of my penis.

THEY WOULD STICK A HUGE SCOPE OR SOMETHING, AND GRASP THE STENT, AND RIP IT OUT OF ME THROUGH MY PEE HOLE!

By the time I could wrap my mind around this concept, I was already curled in a fetal position, sucking my thumb and humming the theme song from "The Smurfs".  So the nurse comes in, and says they can either do it in a clinic, where they apply some kind of novocaine gel to my private bits, and "extract" the stent.  Or they could put me in an operating room, sedate me, and extract it. 

"SEDATE MY ASS!" I screamed.

Well, concious sedation still sucks.  So, I'm laying on a table, LEGS in stirrups like I'm giving birth, this femal doctor PEERING between my legs, and I'm drunk like a college fresman, giggling and hooting as she applied a very COLD gel, to numb the area more.  Now, under concious sedation, you can still see, feel and hear things, but it's all detatched and dreamy.  They say that you don't remember anything, but at least for me that's bullshit.  Unfortunatly for me, having trained myself to maintain clarity through drug use, I saw and felt it all, though the medicines took off the painful edge, I felt her grab my penis, and shove this giant scope UP my penis, into my bladder, and probe around for the stent.  She felt it, grabbed it and BAM pulled this HUGE bloody chunk from OUT OF my PENIS.  Shortly thereafter I decided to sleep for a while.   When I woke up, I thought it was a dream.  Till I remembered it was real.

Bt

Holy crap, I had the exact same thing happen to me as well...I had some kidney stones surgically removed (through the penis) and had the stent and all. Except when they removed it from me, I had to drop my shorts and the male doctor -- MALE -- gripped the penis with one hand while he pulled the stent out with the other. Talk about humiliating.

[00jon00]

Man, you guys and your penis stories...Your making it hurt

[George]

God Blackthorne519! In a day and age where there are no more (MAJOR) wars… that probably deserves a purple heart! Wouldn't catch me doing that!! And the same goes for all you other guys!

Kinoko: Me too…

Hmm…I noticed that no one here so far has mentioned needles…err…the very word makes my stomach lurch. Stangely enough, even since I was about 5yrs I've never cried or put up a fight, but they scare the living day lights outta me! :o 

 

[Dart]

I, too, have a phobia of vomiting. My fear is so great that I won't drink any type of alcoholic beverage for the rest of my life because of the possible chance of throwing up. And I can't stand to see any of my friends throw up either; if they said that they felt sick, I would distance myself away from them instead of trying to make them feel better.

About me being a hypochondriac... well, there was this one time I tried to pet a newborn mouse without knowing that the mother would be super aggressive. Needless to say, I winded up with a huge chunk of my hand being bitten and a massive amount of blood and white stuff started to spill on the floor. I overacted over this and thought I would die right there since the mouse might've had rabies or some other fatal disease.

Of course, my hand is in perfect shape now: not even a scar to indicate what had happened earlier.