Worrywart84
14-11-18, 01:27
Hello.
I have lurked here awhile and finally felt like I needed to share my story.
I have had HA since childhood—I would be playing with the neighbor kids, hear a siren and immediately jump the fence and rush home convinced that one of my family members was dead.
I’m now 34, married with two young children, and feel absolutely crippled by HA.
My history of worries-turned doctor visits are too lengthy to list, but some of the more memorable instances include:
Convinced I had a tumor after feeling an asymmetrical lump in my side...it was a rib.
Convinced I had enlarged lymph nodes in my neck...a doctor’s exam, u/s and bloodwork showed nothing.
Convinced I had skin cancer twice...dermatologist said lesions were nothing.
Convinced every twinge in pregnancy was impending doom...had two healthy full term children.
Convinced of various ailments in both children, ranging from leukemia to NF1, Horner’s Syndrome, squamous cell carcinoma, blood clots, autism, etc. I’ve examined every bruise, every bump, every rash, every fever and go down the rabbit hole, fearing the absolute worst.
And now, the most terrifying of all words, the C word, has become a reality for my mom—last month she was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer.
So guess what I think I have now. Yep, colon cancer. Of course I’ve had intermittent rectal bleeding that was always attributed to hemmroids or fissures for over a decade and ironically that ailment never caused me much worry because it had been happening on and off for as long as I could remember, but now that my mom has been diagnosed and I’ve been Googling nonstop, all I can find are stories of people their 30s being diagnosed with stage IV cancer after decades of having their symptoms dismissed. Cue total freak out now that I have a family history. And then like clockwork, I developed loose stools, thin stools, dark spots within my stool, shortness of breath, weight loss, and lower left abdominal pain. I have a colonoscopy scheduled for this Friday.
THEN....
I have had a weird “gash” on my upper gum since July which of course I thought was oral cancer. I wrestled with it until August when it wasn’t going away and I decided to see my dentist. He immediately dismissed it as irritation from my electric toothbrush and to be more gentle. As HA often works, I was immediately relieved and the spell of anxiety was broken by a “you’re fine” diagnosis from a doctor so I stopped worrying about it. Until today. I went for a cleaning and it’s still there. This time the dentist seemed more concerned and told Me to try brushing it with a baby toothbrush and rinsing with salt water. Then he said something along the lines of if it doesn’t clear up he could refer me to an oral surgeon and mentioned a biopsy. Cue total freak out.
So I currently sit here watching my two young children, feeling like I am on the verge of being diagnosed with colon cancer and/or oral cancer and won’t be around to see them grow up.
In a strange way, worrying about two things at once almost makes me feel better because I think wow the likelihood of having both of these would be super crazy rare—maybe Individually they don’t seem that probable either. But that only comforts me so much.
I also keep thinking, just because I have HA doesn’t mean I am immune to some bad health thing happening. That terrifies me.
I have been to two therapists in my life and while I enjoyed unloading on them in the moment (and one of them told me if anxiety were an Olympic sport I would get the gold medal for catastrophic thinking), I clearly don’t think it helped that much.
Thanks for listening and please pray for me.
I have lurked here awhile and finally felt like I needed to share my story.
I have had HA since childhood—I would be playing with the neighbor kids, hear a siren and immediately jump the fence and rush home convinced that one of my family members was dead.
I’m now 34, married with two young children, and feel absolutely crippled by HA.
My history of worries-turned doctor visits are too lengthy to list, but some of the more memorable instances include:
Convinced I had a tumor after feeling an asymmetrical lump in my side...it was a rib.
Convinced I had enlarged lymph nodes in my neck...a doctor’s exam, u/s and bloodwork showed nothing.
Convinced I had skin cancer twice...dermatologist said lesions were nothing.
Convinced every twinge in pregnancy was impending doom...had two healthy full term children.
Convinced of various ailments in both children, ranging from leukemia to NF1, Horner’s Syndrome, squamous cell carcinoma, blood clots, autism, etc. I’ve examined every bruise, every bump, every rash, every fever and go down the rabbit hole, fearing the absolute worst.
And now, the most terrifying of all words, the C word, has become a reality for my mom—last month she was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer.
So guess what I think I have now. Yep, colon cancer. Of course I’ve had intermittent rectal bleeding that was always attributed to hemmroids or fissures for over a decade and ironically that ailment never caused me much worry because it had been happening on and off for as long as I could remember, but now that my mom has been diagnosed and I’ve been Googling nonstop, all I can find are stories of people their 30s being diagnosed with stage IV cancer after decades of having their symptoms dismissed. Cue total freak out now that I have a family history. And then like clockwork, I developed loose stools, thin stools, dark spots within my stool, shortness of breath, weight loss, and lower left abdominal pain. I have a colonoscopy scheduled for this Friday.
THEN....
I have had a weird “gash” on my upper gum since July which of course I thought was oral cancer. I wrestled with it until August when it wasn’t going away and I decided to see my dentist. He immediately dismissed it as irritation from my electric toothbrush and to be more gentle. As HA often works, I was immediately relieved and the spell of anxiety was broken by a “you’re fine” diagnosis from a doctor so I stopped worrying about it. Until today. I went for a cleaning and it’s still there. This time the dentist seemed more concerned and told Me to try brushing it with a baby toothbrush and rinsing with salt water. Then he said something along the lines of if it doesn’t clear up he could refer me to an oral surgeon and mentioned a biopsy. Cue total freak out.
So I currently sit here watching my two young children, feeling like I am on the verge of being diagnosed with colon cancer and/or oral cancer and won’t be around to see them grow up.
In a strange way, worrying about two things at once almost makes me feel better because I think wow the likelihood of having both of these would be super crazy rare—maybe Individually they don’t seem that probable either. But that only comforts me so much.
I also keep thinking, just because I have HA doesn’t mean I am immune to some bad health thing happening. That terrifies me.
I have been to two therapists in my life and while I enjoyed unloading on them in the moment (and one of them told me if anxiety were an Olympic sport I would get the gold medal for catastrophic thinking), I clearly don’t think it helped that much.
Thanks for listening and please pray for me.