The Prologue

Let me start this out with a disclaimer: I AM A MEDICAL FREAK OF ANXIETY RIDDEN NATURE.

Let me clarify. What I mean is this. It's not so much that I am a medical freak of nature. And I'm not really all that much anxiety ridden by nature. Normally, I'm pretty calm, cool, collected and as a bonus, super-duper positive.

However...... slap a blood pressure cuff on my arm, get out a needle, check my eye pressure, experience a normal run of the mill cold or flu. Many of these things and more and I turn into a mess of anxiety ridden freakiness.

Just ask my husband. It was Halloween night. We were pretty low-key that night. I don't even think we dressed up or did anything for that matter. I kinda had a cold so I was home resting. I tried to go to bed but I kept coughing and felt a tightness in my chest. Not so abnormal for a cold I suppose. However, I had to call my future-husband and have him come over. Naturally, I thought that my lungs could collapse in my sleep and I would be found dead the next morning. And how sad that would be. Although I'm totally not afraid of dying because I know where I'm going. I usually don't go to bed hoping for that. I mean someday, yes. It will be pretty cool I'm sure to be in heaven. Just not like, tonight. So, he comes over to reassure me.

And that only got as far as me calling my mom. Who I must get the syndrome from because she too was certain my lung could collapse and I needed to go to the doctor. So just to be sure I called ASK-A-NURSE. I'm sure they have a thick file on my already but I had to risk it this time. My lungs could collapse at any minute for petes sake! Get that nurse on the line-STAT. Well, she confirmed it. I should be seen. I knew it!

Have you ever called ASK A NURSE? I'm pretty sure 9 times out of 10 they tell you to go in.

So my gracious future-husband loaded me in the car and drove me to the local Emergency Center. We were quite entertained while we waited for 3 hours to be seen in the wee hours of the morning. Remember...it was Halloween night. We saw Superman with a broken leg. Probably due to drinking too much booz kryptonite.

Before they called me back,I told Derrick I thought maybe we should go home. I guess I wasn't all that bad. But....we stayed to get the confirmation from the Doc.

After the exam, chest x-ray and a little puff on the nebulizer they sent me home. But I felt a little better because like they did give me a prescription. Better that is, until I got to the

hospital pharmacy. I handed them my prescription, feeling a little relief that it was in fact necessary for me to come in.

The pharmacist looked at it, looked up and sorta smiled. He said, well, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is, I will not be able to fill your prescription. The good news is, this is just regular cough medicine and you can go to any grocery store that is open and pick this up.

So, there you go. Who knew they could fix a collpased lung with plain old walmart style cough medicine!

In closing, let me tell you, there are numerous other stories I could tell similar to this one.Many on this very blog even. Every time I get the flu and reach the "chills" stage, I am convinced that I am very close to death. My sis in law even came over once to pick me up only to find out that I just in fact had the chills. Another time my back went out and I thought my rib punctured my lung. Strange-looking poop? Certainly I must be bleeding internally.

Bring me into the docs office to discuss any of my own symptoms whatsoever and I am a blabbering,blubbering mess. Talking a million miles a minute, seeming to be like a complete fruitcake.

You get the drift. And me being the therapist that I am would like to now make my official diagnosis. I have what I would like coin as MEDICAL-INDUCED ANXIETY. There I said it. I'm Shannon. And I'm a Medically-Induced Anxious Hot Mess.

I assure you all. This is not the case in my normal, non-medical related life. Cool as a cucumber I tell you. Cool.

Enter the fall of 2009...........