The Confessions of a Neurotic Hypochondriac

When I arrived home yesterday evening, my nanny (a.k.a. father-in-law) told me that Sadie hadn't eaten all day. And Ella had fallen asleep at 4:00. I knew trouble was afoot. But then Sadie ate some salami (while also repeating a line from a book we recently read, "I love my mommy as much as salami") and had some gatorade. No dinner though.

Five minutes after we put her to bed, Sadie threw up all over her bed. For some reason, this prompted Ella to get out of bed and start crying. I guess she was worried about Sadie (?), but life gets a little impossible whenever Sadie gets hurt or sick because Ella gets more upset than Sadie does.

In any case, Sadie slept fine (mostly) last night and seemed her normal self this morning. She had toast and gatorade for breakfast and did not throw up again.

End of story, right? Okay, yes, that *would* be the end of the story were this post written by someone who is not a neurotic hypochondriac. But sadly, I am both openly neurotic (as most of you know) and a closeted hypochondriac (or not so closeted depending on how well you know me). I will spend the rest of the week monitoring Ella and myself (Dean can take care of himself!) for any signs of impending stomach doom. The last time the kids got the stomach flu (about a year ago), I spent a week imagining I would be hit with the bug at a any second. I managed to avoid getting sick, but I'll never get that week back.

Speaking of time I'll never get back, I imagine I'll also never get back the past two months, during which I diagnosed myself with MS because of some vision problems I was having. Let me tell you: Google is not the friend of a hypochondriac. In all fairness, I WAS having vision problems--pretty bad blurring that was basically keeping me from seeing clearly out of my left eye. And this IS one of the first signs of MS, according to my somewhat extensive research. But two trips to the eye doctor confirmed first an eye infection and then chronic dryness, which seems to have been corrected by eye drops and a new kind of contact lens. To the credit of the guy at Pearle, he did not laugh at me when, upon my last visit, I asked him whether this vision stuff could be the symptom of an underlying medical condition like MS. He didn't even roll his eyes. Although I'm sure he WANTED to. And who could blame him?

Give me two sort of generic symptoms, and I can diagnose you with a host of diseases. Got a headache? That could be a tumor lying in wake, waiting to ravage your brain. I've had a headache every day for the past month, and though the simplest explanations are either stress or sinus troubles (which I have regularly in the fall and spring), you could add that symptom to my vision problems and voila! You have a brain tumor. Or I do.

For what it's worth, this is mostly in jest. I mean, yes, I am neurotic. And yes, I have hypochondriac tendencies. But I don't really think I have a brain tumor. And I can see that it's completely ridiculous to spend the next week waiting for the stomach flu to knock the rest of us out like flies. I mean, it'll either get us or it won't, and even if it does, we'll all live to tell about it. But I'm here to tell you that life as a neurotic hypochondriac is not easy. Sure, we may drive the rest of you "normal" people crazy. But imagine what it's like to be me! I can't escape myself for even a minute. You lucky souls out there just have to close this window to continue on with your regularly scheduled existence. Sans stomach flu, no less.

The really ironic part about all of this is that you'd expect me to be one of those moms with the hand sanitizer always at the ready. But I'm not. I can't even remember to have my kids wash their hands before meals. I'm a serious slacker mom in a lot of ways. I don't call the pediatrician an abnormal amount. I don't balk at fevers--even high ones. Hell, we don't even own a working thermometer right now. I don't pay enough attention to the various owies the children accumulate, which caused me to ignore a scrape on Ella's foot that later got infected. I wouldn't have taken Sadie to the ER for her gaping head wound if a call to the pediatrician hadn't told me it was necessary (you would have called too because she was drenched in blood; actually, a smarter parent probably would have gone right to the ER). When it comes to my kids and all the myriad things that could happen to them in the course of daily life, I don't really worry.

I'm an enigma wrapped in a riddle. Which must be what my husband sees in me.

Carry on then people. I've got diseases to research.