Recovering Hypochondriac

I am a Recovering Hypochondriac. (Note: I don't even know if there is such a thing as a Recovering Hypochondriac, but it sounds really good to me, so I'm going to go with it.)

Last year, around this time, I was diagnosed with a blood clot in my calf following my ACL/Meniscus surgery in my left leg. You can read about my initial blog post here. This was the first time in my existence that I had been scared for my life. I had always had the joy of living a healthy life. I never had any health scares, or near death experiences, so this diagnosis brought a new anxiety to me.

I was nervous to go to sleep at night for a while because I wasn't sure if I would wake up in the morning. I imagined my husband waking up to a cold body beside him, and grief-stricken that he had to raise three children by himself (and how was he going to feed our newborn son...he needed breastmilk!).

Each little twinge/pain/stiffness/swelling in that calf made me nervous that the clot dislodged and was quickly making its way to my lungs to clog up my airways, causing me to turn blue and die from asphyxiation. I was also suffering from some other weird symptoms around the same time-tingling fingers/arms, nausea, and headaches- which was just adding to the anxiety (*turns out it was a pinched nerve in my thoracic outlet). If I had gas in my chest from eating something wrong at dinner, I thought I might be having heart attack symptoms. If I had a headache, I worried that I might have a clot which would lead to a stroke. Seriously, I was a mess.

I was afraid of dying. I was becoming a Hypochondriac.

Weeks and months passed, and I didn't die. Over time I actually started feeling better. But, I still had these lingering doubts that something else was wrong with me, and I was still going to die. I would come across blogs with terrible awful stories about loss, and wonder if there was some inspiration of why I found that blog or that story. Was it a message? Was this blog about a woman that had cancer a message to me that I had cancer, too, and that I should get it checked out? (Who thinks like this? It does no good to worry and stew about this kind of stuff. When am I going to learn that?)

But, I am happy to say that I am a recovering Hypochondria. Do you wonder what cured me? I didn't die.

Time passed after my trauma of giving birth, knee surgery, post-surgery complications and recovery, and I didn't die. I was able to slowly recognize the connection of my hypochondria to all of that trauma that I had experienced.

The really interesting thing about this experience is that I have a new outlook on life. When you are faced with a life-threatening illness/situation (even though, in hindsight, I blew mine out of proportion), it helps you put things into perspective. I spend less time being worried about trivial things-like, if someone likes me or not, or traffic, or cancelled appointments, and spend my time being grateful for being alive.