I’m Not Paranoid. I Have 7 Legitimate Diseases.

I was really perplexed the other day. While browsing through Twitterland, I noticed a trending topic of #RIPJackieChan. I mean, I’m not a huge fan of Jackie Chan, but when someone dies I gotta know why. Cus maybe he had the same symptoms I’m having and maybe I’m about to die too. So I clicked on the category to see what happened.

Well, he didn’t die. It was all a ploy by his fans to get attention.

Now. I’m pretty sure it’s obvious why I was so upset: nobody’s fake tweeting about my death.

What up with that? All of the sudden I’m not even as cool as Jackie Chan? Since when? You know I can’t help the fact that I’m not Chinese, right? And I’m still perfecting my roundhouse kick – it takes TIME people! As I sat there, saddened, I decided to play with my new camera phone, while remaining very sad.

In the depths of my despair, I sent out a tweet saying that if people truly loved me, they would fake tweet about my death. It might have been the Tweet equivalent of fishing for a compliment, but whatever.  Sure enough, they tweeted. Thus, my confidence was restored and I wasn’t forced to close my Twitter account.

Anyway, all of this death talk reminds me that I have 7 legitimate, self-diagnosed diseases. And I say legitimate, cus I don’t think I can consider Diverticulitis and Restless Leg Syndrome to be diseases. Or can I?

My fiance thinks that I’m 90% hypochondriac and 10% lunatic. If you ask him, he will give you two specific instances as to why he thinks this.

Reason #1: I call him at work, from MY work, on the verge of tears. I tell him that I am certain that I’m having pre-heart attack symptoms. He then asked me if I’d been spending a lot of time on WebMD lately. I decided that question wasn’t pertinent to the case and pleaded the fifth. Gee, I don’t know: sharp pains in my chest, left arm and upper back, waking up in the middle of the night with shortness of breath, extreme fatigue… you tell me. I never exercise. Heart problems run in the family… sounds like a statistic in the making, right?

The next morning, when I was lucky enough to wake up, I ate carrots for breakfast and pleaded to the heavens that I would start doing my Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred if I could just bide a little more time. Then I did what any responsible person would do and started myself on an Aspirin regiment.

Reason #2: This next one, I admit, was an all-time low. I was mulling over the probable heart attack I was about to have and the possible Type 2 Diabetes scare, when the fiance had slowly passed out on the couch while listening to all my ailments. Suddenly, I shook him awake and said, “I just need you to take a pic for me real quick.” Knowing that he was seriously going to send me packing on the crazy train if I told him why, I said, “Don’t ask questions. I just need to see something.” I turned around and lifted up the back of my shirt while handing him the camera. He goes, “What am I taking a pic of?” I said, The mole on my back,” as I leaned in toward the lamp so he could get a clear shot. “You’ve got to be KIDDING me.” I don’t know what had overcome me, but in that moment, all I could see in my head were flashbacks to Grey’s Anatomy when Izzy found the tiny mole on her back and it turned out to be metastatic melanoma.

So sue me.

UPDATE: My Cardiac Health Risk Screening [A Video Reenactment]