We’re still on vacation. Except by now we are in Nashville. We’re seeing a show and generally acting up for a few days.

I re-read this post and knew immediately where the the blog post title and the story title came from. The movie Splash. The scene where John Candy tells Tom Hanks that he had a Penthouse letter published. He said it was a beautiful story and it was called A Lesbian No More.

Anyway, here is another recycled blog post from Rage Your Way Thin.

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I have some inspiration for you today. I know that traditionally, my blog posts are either some heavy shit I’m dealing with, some snarky shit or maybe a little hope here and there, but I have never aspired to be inspirational. Until today. I have a beautiful story called:

A Hypochondriac No More

I come from a long and distinguished line of hypochondriacs. We’re good at it. I’ve worked on perfecting my art over my decades and I must say, the advent of the internet has made being a hypochondriac easier than ever. I used to worry about a few diseases here and there when I was younger. Cancer, of course. Cancer is king. I also worried a bit about MS. Perhaps a mild case of insanity. Then we got the internet. WebMD is amazing. I can put in a few symptoms and all of a sudden I have dozens, sometimes hundreds of possibilities.

Well, being a hypochondriac gains me dick. And not in a good way. So, I am going to attempt to give it up. Here is my list of ailments that I am giving up.

Sleeping Sickness – Okay, I don’t really think I’m going to contract sleeping sickness. But when I go for a number of days feeling exhausted, I’m always afraid that I have mono. Never mind that I already had mono once. I don’t know for sure, but I think that it’s either impossible or rare to get mono more than once. I would look it up, but as I’ve never been overly concerned about accuracy on this blog, I don’t care all that much. That being said, I worry about getting mono again. I got mono when I was 38 years old. 38 fucking years old. My doctor said he had never seen someone that old get mono. Do you have any idea how many jokes I heard about hanging out at the high school football practice?  I’m not going to get mono again. I just fucking need to sleep better.

Stroke – This one really isn’t all that far fetched. I’ve worked for the same company for 5 years. The support staff is relatively small. Under 100. In those 5 years, I know two women who have had a stroke. Both younger than me. It’s not like I’m an easy going person or anything. I’m fucking high strung as fuck. It’s entirely possible that I could have a stroke. On the other hand, I am changing my diet and while my work outs have been haphazard at best lately, I know I’m going to get back to it. Also, if I’m gonna have a stroke, then I guess I will have one. Worrying about it won’t change a damn thing. Even if I get a really sharp pain in my head.

Ovarian Cancer – This is the biggie. This is the Queen of all my made-up illnesses. This is the one that can wake me up from a dead sleep. One of the symptoms ovarian cancer is excessive gas and bloating. In the past few weeks, I have been making some pretty major changes in my eating habits. One this that I am eating a lot of these days are beans. It seems that on the days that I have beans at lunch, in the afternoon…it’s a little tiny bit possible that I become mildly gassy. Also, in addition to adding beans to my diet, I’ve been eating a lot of steamed broccoli and cauliflower. The fact that my moments of bloating always coincide with eating food that causes, well, issues that the male of the species finds hilarious does not stop me from worrying. From now on, on those days, I will stop fretting about ovarian cancer. I will not call my doctor and beg to have my ovaries removed before it is too late.

Those are the big 3. During cold and flu season, I worry about whatever flu has Made the headlines. Oh, I’ll pretend that I’m not worried. I’ll probably make fun it. I’ll even be derisive about it, but don’t think for one fucking minute that part of me isn’t chewing her fingernails over the possibility of catching it. 

This is really no fun at all. Being a hypochondriac isn’t the glamorous life one would expect. It makes your stomach hurt and it wastes perfectly good worrying time on something enormously stupid. Better to worry about robots taking over the world. 

By the way…my family has attempted to ban me from WebMD. I tell them that I don’t look anymore, then we laugh and laugh.

That is the end of my story. Keep me company, I’m not the only who worries about getting sick, right?

Current me here..I am kind of impressed that I talked about being gassy. I’ve been uptight about bodily functions for most of my life. I don’t remember writing this, but I am surprised by what I said. Maybe I haven’t been giving myself enough credit. I also don’t eat broccoli or cauliflower now because I can’t take the stomach aches anymore.

We’ll be home on Saturday. I will try to have some brand spanking new material for you soon.