An apple a day....

MY ASS.

I'm not really much for hypochondriasis. The sniffles are not a sinus infection. Nausea happens to everyone. And the common cold is probably employed with such a name as common because that's exactly what it is: common. I am starting to get a little concerned though. In the past year, my health has been severely annoying and expensive! I have done the whole healthy eating and exercise thing, the quitting smoking thing, the sleeping well thing... and I still manage to get really, really ill.

To sum up the laundry list of symptoms we'll just go with diagnoses from the many doctors I have had the unfortunate chance of meeting... ready?

In the past year I have had:

*Pneumonia THREE times (something most people get maybe once in their lifetime if at all)

*Sinus infections

*The flu in conjunction with a sinus infection and pneumonia

*More "common colds" than most people get in their lifetime

*Appendicitis that meant I was great one day and had emergency surgery the next.

*Dizzy spells accompanied by nausea and severe stomach pain

*Back pain that averages a 5 and will sometimes twinge to a 7 or 8 if I move in the wrong direction

*UTIs and yeast infections (was tested for STDs and came back clean... no worries there!)

*Daily headaches that range from a dull ache to migranes that make my eyeballs hurt.

Something most people don't know about me is that I hate doctors. They make too much money by giving people prescriptions that are too expensive. I don't take pain medication unless I can not bear it any longer. Case in point, I went in for my appendicitis without taking anything but Gas-X thinking that it must have been gas. The girl that came in behind me had the same thing and was doubled over in pain after taking whatever she could to dull it. I was treated last of everyone in the emergency room and ended up being the one with an almost bursting appendicitis. Hers was barely inflamed. I didn't take any pain meds until after the surgery and only so I could walk because I was being rushed out of my room. So to say I have a high tolerance for pain might be an understatement but whatever the case.... this is what worries me.

I waited until the last minute for a severe condition to go to the ER to get checked out for something I thought was nothing more than a really bad stomach ache. I worry that I am doing the same thing now. Waiting until the last minute that could be something serious. The symptoms are somewhat manageable for me, but maybe I am just building up a tolerance for always being in pain and always being sick? Treating symptoms but not the cause?

What's bringing all this on is mostly the dizzy spells. They're getting worse. Sometimes I'll be driving and the whole world kind of turns to the right and then back to the left and then it's normal. Followed by a nasty case of nausea. I've noticed that my depth perception is way off. I'll go to put something down at work on what I think is the counter and then realize I have misjudged and almost drop it on the floor. I do this all the time. Sometimes I'll be sitting in bed and not moving and all of a sudden I'm dizzy. It's ridiculous. I know I can't keep on living like all of this is normal. Somewhere deep down I know you're not supposed to get pneumonia three times in one year and consider yourself a healthy person. But what kind of doctor would I go to? Without being treated like a hypochondriac? Because I'm not one. I'm not even scared by all of these things. The dizziness concerns me but I'm not really freaked out by any of it. I just toss it off as stress and maybe I just need a good back massage, where most people would be running to a doctor.

But what if my pride is getting me in trouble this time? What if there is something wrong and I'm just too stubborn to do anything about it? Questions that are immediately answered in my head: "You're fine, quit worrying about it."