I am a frail, frail man.

You may not know this about me but I am a hypochondriac.  I am a bad hypochondriac.  So much so that I am a hypochondriac about being a hypochondriac.  Ask my wife.  It is really so bad that it has almost become a mental illness.  Again, this is the absolute truth, ask my wife. I worry constantly about my health.  Everyday an hour does not go by when I do not have some sort of health anxiety.  It started on my mission when I swore I had a fungus on my tongue.  It probably wasn't really a fungus or anything really.  But I put scope in my mouth and left it there for a full half hour.  I burned all of the skin off every part of the inside of my mouth and I could not eat solid food for almost a week.  

Now, I realize that this will be a very funny list.  It is to me now that I have read it over.  But at the time these where all real ailments that I stressed about to no end.  In the last 10 years, I have had the following health problems that I have worried continuously about (either real or imagined).

• Constant headache for a month (most likely brain tumor)
• Dizziness for a month (again, brain tumor)
• A crackling in the left ear when hearing a loud sound.  (Most likely a broken ear drum from sticking a drum stick in my ear as a teenager and falling down the stairs, of course breaking my ear drum)
• Deviated septum - (ENT told me I had this at a recent visit)
• Heart murmur (doctor told me I had a slight one at at recent visit)
• Lump in my throat (most likely throat cancer, turns out it was just from my acid reflux)
• Burping up acid (again, acid reflux)
• Quick, sharp chest pains (Had this for years.  I was even checked thoroughly for heart problems, which I was sure I had.  Turns out it was just more acid reflux.)
• Tingling in my back.  (No pain just tingling.  I was sure I had MS.)
• MS - thought I had this on several occasions.
• Diarrhea - everyone has a case of this occasionally.  I had it for a week once and thought for sure I had stomach cancer.
• Eyesight getting worse - I thought this was a symptom of having MS.
• Foot pain - now I know this is just from jogging so much, but it still hurt.
• Recent horrible rash on my back.  I thought for SURE I had shingles.  I still think I might have.  Of course, it was probably just a rash.  It hurt though.  Of course, the rash combined with the tingling in my back could only mean one thing.  SPINAL CANCER!
• Butt pain - I have been having this for about a week.  Again, probably just from over-jogging, but it still does not stop me from continuously feeling for a lump.
• Pleurisy - OK, I actually did have this, twice, like 9 years ago.  But I still worry about getting it again.
• Acid Reflux - Still battling this and I take medication for it.  
• Small, reoccurring rash under my right eye.  Went to a skin doctor, went away, but it comes back every so often.  Most likely, skin cancer.
• One of my thumbs will no longer crack when I try to crack it.  I think I might have arthritis in that thumb.
• All over body itching.  Not sure what to attribute this to, but I am constantly scratching.  What is weird is that my armpits itch the most???  Not sure what that is all about.
• I had bright green stool once.  Totally freaked me out.  Not sure how many times I typed in "bright green stool" into Google to see what in the world that was.  I think I may have even typed in "neon stool" into a search engine.  I guarantee no one that reads this blog has ever done a search for "neon stool" before.

HAHA - I am laughing now that I have typed all of that. Wow.  The funny thing is that most of these symptoms can be attributed to stress.  What am I stressed about? My health, of course!  It is a vicious, vicious cycle.

The worst is when I get on the internet.  The internet is a bad, bad place for hypochondriacs.  I can search for hours about my symptoms and the more I search the worse the disease becomes.  What's more, I am even worse when it comes to my kids.  I could make a whole new list about what they may have had, but I will spare you.  I will tell you that in the last week I was worried that Lincoln had a tumor pushing against his eyes and that was pushing extra eye mucus (sleepybugs) out of his eyes.  I wish I was joking.