Thursday, November 8, 2007

I need categories ...

Tonight I realized that I need different categories for my posts. One category will be "things that people say that should be comforting but cause a red haze of rage to descend on me ..."

Tonight my mother-in-law asked me about a slew of unpleasant tests that I am taking on Monday (more about that later -- sorry that this is out of order). I was telling her that the thought of a lumbar puncture was creeping me out. She said, in a comforting way, that maybe my brother in law was right -- "maybe it's nothing".

Excuse me?

Just so you know, I also wonder if maybe all of the symptoms that I am experiencing are nothing. Which makes me batshit crazy. Or have such a weird disease that people think that I have nothing, while I am being slowly devoured by parasites or something. Or be the biggest effing hypochondriac that the world has ever seen.

I sort of would like this all to be nothing. Really. I would like all of my symptoms to go away and my brain to be fine. I would like to not have anything chronically wrong with me. I would like it if the radiologists and neurologists who looked at my MRI were all incompetent idiots and are all wrong. I would like it to be a brain infection that has miraculously cleared up, or an inner ear problem or something.

I am totally up for a miracle, here.

So maybe this is all nothing. But it sure feels like something.

2 comments:

Rowan said...

Bob, I have been your friend for long enough to know that you do not have the genetic marker for hypochondria. I have been at the sharp end of well-meaning platitudes in the past, and the intended comfort can shapeshift into something that merely restricts and constrains the possibility of openly expressing your thoughts and anxieties.

I will be praying for you about your tests on Monday. I backed-out of a test two years ago, which the Consultant made me sign a waiver of hospital responsibility over. It was stupid of me, but I felt afraid and alone, and just ran. You are facing all the unknowns head-on, and very bravely, and I hope very much that you have some definitive answers soon. I also hope never to post or say anything platitudionously* red haze worthy, but am sometimes clumsy and dyspraxic, so undoubtedly will. Am giving you full permission to give me a cyber clump round the lug, cos you will need to, and it will be received with good grace,chica.


Am not completely sure that this is the correct spelling of this word, but if I check my online dictionary, it may poof my post, and I am having to set up my account over again ever time I leave a comment!

Rowan said...

I have checked, and it is "platitudinous". Gak. Ought to have internalised it, as it is displayed on an oft-repeated episode of Spongebob. (Off for a wee wachle to disperse chagrin.)