Diseases I do not have

Whew. Even typing that subject line makes me nervous. I am very superstitious, and a hypochondriac, and so am convinced that by stating outright that I am well, I will call down upon my head plagues of boils and pestilence, if not necessarily frogs and locusts.



The fact is that I am a reasonably healthy 27 year old woman who thinks she's dying all the time. There is no reason for this: I don't drink as much as I used to, and I doubt that my three-cigarette-a-week smoking habit construes much of a cancer risk. (I gave up drinking tap water to compensate.) I work out. I get lots of sleep. I'm sort of stressed out, as a general state of mind, but that's just sort of me.



But, as of this writing, I do not, to my knowlege, have cancer, or AIDs, or nasty rash-causing things, or Tourette's syndrome, or a personality disorder, or incontinence, or MS, or anything of that nature. I have low blood pressure, low chloresterol, and a good medical history on both sides of my family.



However, about once a week, I sit bolt upright in my bed, wide awake, convinced that I am dying of something awful. Something fast. And painful. And disfiguring. Face cancer maybe. The kind of thing that would make it so that no one would ever want to kiss me again, or even invite me to their parties.



My point is that my only real problem is that I'm neurotic. But if you've been reading this journal for very long, you probably already knew that.