I’ve never been particularly anxious about my health, beyond the usual worries anyway. I’ve had the odd ‘does this small ache or pain mean I have cancer’ panic after a bit of googling, but it usually passed within an hour. In the past year this has completely changed. The constant reporting about Covid at the beginning of last year built up in my mind until I had a series of panic attacks because of it in April last year. Since then, I’ve been convinced I was dying or seriously ill numerous times.
I found a lump on my chest about a year ago and noticed a pain in my shoulder which radiated down my arm and up my neck. I convinced myself it was some sort of cancer, but I didn’t tell anyone and I didn’t go to a doctor, mostly out of fear someone would tell me it was serious. For the next year or so, any little bump, spot, cough, ache, or pain was proof I was ill. In a weird way, I just sort of accepted it, probably because I knew deep down I was making a bigger deal out of it than it deserved.
This changed a week and a half ago when I felt a lump in my neck. For the first time it actually felt real, and I was in an uncontrollable panic. After a few day I forced myself to go to the GP. I was convinced I would be told there and then something was seriously wrong, which only made things worse. Well, that didn’t happen. The lump on my chest is a lipoma, the pain in my shoulder is most likely an untreated rotator cuff injury, and after checking the lymph nodes in my neck, collarbone, armpit and groin multiple times, he found absolutely nothing. I had no symptoms of any serious illness. He did offer me a referral for a scan to ease my mind after I asked, but was adamant there was nothing wrong.
I felt like a complete idiot just wasting someones time, but for the first time in a year I felt free of worry. That was until about three days later when I convinced myself I have testicular cancer, despite having absolutely no symptoms or reasons for worry. I’m worse than I’ve ever been at the moment, but I do have this weird nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I can almost exactly pinpoint when and why this all started. Thinking of that moment seems to ease my worry and stop any incoming panic, for a short while at least. I don’t really know why.
I know this was incredibly longwinded and potentially off topic, but can anyone else actually pinpoint nearly to the minute when their HA started and why? If so, does your knowledge of some sort of initial triggering event ease your mind at all, or effect you in any way?