Friday, November 25, 2011

Stomach Cancer or Hysterical Pregnancy? Cast your vote now!


           I have had this problem since pretty much the beginning of October where I am unable to consume real food.  My diet has consisted of mostly cold cereal for two months.  Any deviation from this plan makes me horribly nauseated and I spend most of the rest of the day praying that death will take me.  Bright side:  I have lost 10 lbs thanks to my new Carbs Only diet.  Down side: I am downright sick of this shit. 

At first I thought I hoped it was a bug, because my only other choice… was not worth thinking about.  Unfortunately television says that any stomach upset, headache, weird food craving or backache means an unwanted pregnancy, and I could not help leaping to the worse possible conclusions.  I have hysterical pregnancies all the time but mostly when I am in relationships that I know are not going anywhere and I dread the idea of being tied to a moron forever by my being in the .01% of women who are failed by The Pill.  My current Boy does not fall under such a category, but we are nowhere near the kid stage, so I went ahead and panicked anyway.  As in all other times of deepest crisis, I called my BFF Meredith hoping she would talk me out of my paranoia.  Instead, she told me to take a pregnancy test.  Damnit. 

If that is not the longest three minutes in the universe, I don’t know what else could be.  Both tests I took were negatory (thankyouGodthankyouthankyou) but that left me with endless queasiness and again, the inability to eat more than Rice Checks three meals a day.  And also the nagging doubt that a pregnancy test from the Dollar Tree may not be as accurate as the box claimed…  In an effort to comfort me with my anxiety, Meredith sent me this hilarious link that gives you helpful tips to know if you are pregnant or not.  Give it a looksee:


Since I don’t match the criteria exactly (although it is not unheard of me to spontaneously want to make 18 deviled eggs at 3AM), I must look for a new explanation for why my internal organs are forming a coup against me. 

            Yesterday’s appallingly stupid attempt to eat a full Thanksgiving dinner and my resultant 13 hour bout of misery and self loathing (Note: writhing in pain is great for the abs!) has led me to lean toward a more dramatic conclusion- stomach cancer.  Extreme, I know, but let me tell you why.  I have been to the hospital 10 times over my short 24 years of existence for various ailments and tragedies, including asthma, broken bones, tonsillectomies, wisdom teeth extraction, surgery, etc.  The odd thing is not so much the frequency at which I find myself sitting on a gurney with a hose in my arm, but the fact that I have only ever had to go to the hospital in the month of November.  Period!  I dread the entire month and spend most of my days trying not to step on slippery surfaces or be in a moving vehicle until the month has passed.  My most vivid Thanksgiving memories are of my family callously cooking a lavish traditional dinner while I lie on the couch staring disconsolately at my Campbells Chicken and Star soup, which is all that the lingering effects of the anesthesia will let me sip on without throwing up.  

            So knowing my medical history as I do, I refuse to go to a doctor until November is over.  With my luck, if I see someone before December 1, my diagnosis will be stomach cancer requiring the immediate removal of all my lovely insides.  After that date, my diagnosis is much more likely to be something harmless, like persistent indigestion.  In the meantime, I plan to watch marathons of House or Grey’s Anatomy to see if they spark even more exciting ideas for self-diagnosis.  Hey, at least it’s not Web MD!


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