rumors of the heart

My heart is beating so hard right now that I can see it through my t-shirt. Cold drops of sweat are running down my forehead and my breathing is getting more and more erratic.

I just discovered that there is such a thing as heart cancer. It's rare, and it strikes people in the prime of life, between the ages of 20 and 40. I am almost right smack dab in the middle of my prime - I'll be 29 this coming October. Average prognosis at diagnosis is 2 years. There are very few effective treatments, since it's so rare. There is very little information available on it. That makes it the perfect disease for me to fear.

A lot of things frighten me, but cancer is at the top of my list, along with centipedes, sex offenders and anything made in China. So, needless to say, discovering a new kind of cancer that I did not yet know existed did not make my day.

ups and downs

Most of my posts thus far have centered around my battle with hypochondriasis and irrational fears of diseases that cause a slow, painful, humiliating death. But that's not my only problem. I also suffer from bipolar disorder and debilitating depression. And it sucks. Most of the time I'm dealing with mania: the drugs keep it in check so that I don't fall too deeply in love with life, but even so, most of the time I am fighting tooth and nail to keep myself at a managable level somewhere between the stratosphere and outer space. The slightest thing can set me on a manic rampage that can last for weeks at a time: this episode that I'm going through right now, for example, was triggered by a song that I liked on the radio. Stupid, isn't it? But that's my life.

When I come down from my high I will quickly plummet, without warning, to somewhere between the center of the Earth and hell. Once again, mood stabilizers save me from damnation.
The hardest thing about it all is the inconsistencies it brings to life. I make plans deep in the throws of mania, then swing into depression and cannot possibly carry them out. I feel like I don't know myself. I feel like I'm NOT myself. I feel like I have demons. This can't be me.

I'm in therapy. I'm on meds. I cry a lot. I can't sleep. I laugh a lot. What saves me is my humor. I find great comfort in my friends, especially the ones who understand my roller-coaster because they're riding it, too. We talk about therapy, meds, mania, the blues, and joke about how it makes up better writers, artists, and scholars. After all, the most creative minds are often the most disturbed. We try to convince ourselves that it makes us more interesting, attractive and intelligent because there's a depth to our being that others lack. Still, in all honesty, there's really nothing hott or glamorous about being a mess.

What do Amy Winehouse and fingers have in common?

...Neither one should be clubbing.

According to People.com, Amy Winehouse, 24, is in the initial phase of emphysema from, as her father, Mitch Winehouse so eloquently puts it, ""With smoking the crack cocaine and the cigarettes her lungs are all gunked up." I guess that'll do it.

Emphysema doesn't particularly frighten me, though. I don't know why. Maybe because I'm too busy worrying about lung cancer and inflammatory breast cancer and Morgellons and everything else under the sun to worry about emphysema. And, because I'm really not concerned about emphysema, I know relatively little about it. So, I decided to remedy that and do a little research. Emphysema is basically a condition that destroys the lung tissue, making it harder and harder to breathe. And its symptoms range from the obvious - shortness of breath, dizziness, fainting - to the bizarre and perplexing. Finger clubbing?
Is that some new trend, like the early-90s rave phenomenon that I'm thankful to have been just a little too young to partake in.
No. It's not a party. It's actually a grotesque symptom of emphysema that will bring me nightmares for days to come.
I do not want to post the image on my blog, but if you feel so inclined, you can catch a glimpse here.