Hypochondriasis

I have begun sleeping on a tempur-pedic mattress, and I am proud to tell you that I am writing this as a new woman!  Ok, that’s not really true, but I hope to be a new woman in several days once the break in period required for tempur-pedics is over, and I am sleeping in all-over-back-support-heaven.  As of this morning, though, well, I do still have a few creaks and aches.  Help me, oh mattress, you’re my only hope*.

*With regards to my back stiffness, that is.  Don’t worry, I’m really not pinning all my hopes and dreams on one mattress, even though their ads do hint at some kind of out of body transport to a luxury over the water hut in Fiji.  I know that’s not going to happen.  But a girl can dream.

Anyway, so this morning back stiffness started a few years ago, and like any good neurotic person with a bit of fancy science knowledge, I immediately knew I had the beginnings of ankylosing spondylitis, a connective tissue disease where a person’s spine becomes more and more stiff, eventually fusing into a rod-like structure.  Yes, where a normal person might stretch and think, “I’m getting old”, I thought, “I’m getting a bamboo spine!”  I don’t know how many of my fellow medical professionals do the same thing, but I can tell you that I got a text message last night from a girlfriend, a close-up picture of her baby’s head, and the caption said “Cutaneous Lymphoma?”  These kind of iPhone consults, both to and from my inbox, are not out of the ordinary.  Do we actually call and make an appointment to get it checked out?  Heck no!  I mean, I don’t want to seem crazy!

In fact, I don’t even get checked out for things I know are real.  At the clinic Christmas party last week, over a plate of fruitcake and sweet potato casserole, I casually mentioned to my friend, who happens to be my primary care provider, that I’ve had an inguinal hernia for years.  Seems like sort of inappropriate party banter, right?  I think being a physician somehow chips away at your appropriateness filter, but anyway, please feel free to still come to a party with me sometime.  I promise I’ve only shown my hernia to a few girlfriends who happen to be doctors.  Just don’t act too interested if I start talking about it.

At this point you’re thinking, where are we going with this?  We started out alright, but now we’ve ended up…well, we’ve ended up where inguinal hernias are, which is a bit of an uncomfortable place.  The truth is, with this mix of fear and doubt, knowledge and experience, aches and pains, and worries coupled with the occasional (read: frequent) ignoring of things I know to be concerning, I’m feeling a little incompetent on the objectivity front.  [If you’re reading this and you’re my patient, don’t worry.  This neurotic lens seems to fall away once I’m not thinking about my children or myself.]

It’s easier, it seems, to avoid the real answer, which is that my back pain is secondary to a common congenital defect of my L5 vertebrae, because the real answer might result in someone telling me that perhaps running isn’t the ideal form of exercise for me.  No, I’d rather keep running, all the while quietly worrying that my vertebrae are slowly fusing together.  I’d rather not have that inguinal hernia officially diagnosed and on the books, because who has time to have surgical repair and post-op recovery and avoid lifting greater than 10 pounds for six weeks?  I’m pretty sure the boys aren’t going to allow that.

This week when I had a little true to life medical scare (all is well, no worries, thankfully), I came to realize amidst all these hang-ups: I’m blessed to be healthy with a few creaks and aches and just a touch of crazy.  I’m blessed to have the access to care and medical attention, where so many others who need it do not, and I hope this injustice can change and very soon.  I’m blessed to have friends who are equally dosed with a drop of anxious insanity, and who are, luckily, objective at just the right moments.  So here’s to your health, as the New Year approaches—are your screening exams up to date?  Cheers!