fiber of my being

As you know, my hypochondria is clearly traceable to two separate, but equally traumatic, events:

1. The discovery that what had previously been believed to be a benign ovarian cyst was actually a rare form of not-quite-malignant- enough -to -kill- ya but pretty serious nonetheless form of ovarian cancer, a.k.a. Borderline Ovarian Cancer, low malignancy potential, or LMP. (Thank God for those 3 little letters!) And, might I add that this discovery happened literally minutes after I had just birthed the most beautiful little creature ever?

2. The discovery of a 2-cm mass in my father's brain, later diagnosed as a glioblastoma multiforme, the most vile of all brain tumors, following a rather violent seizure that came out of nowhere and that was witnessed by me and me alone.

Actually, in the months leading up to my father's diagnosis, hypochondria was already reaching out its nasty little fingers to grab a hold of me and pull me under. I had begun doing the breast self-check weekly, and then daily, and then hourly... feeling my body up and down for swollen lymph nodes or other nodules, and looking up symptoms at WebMD, my favorite site, in the more ambivalent sense of the word.

And then I discovered Morgellons. I still remember, it was a warm July night. I couldn't sleep.
So, I did what I do whenever I can't sleep, and surfed the net in search of the most terrifying illness known to mankind. And just my luck, msn.com had as a featured story "The Top Ten Mysterious Diseases" , or something along those lines. Coming in at number 10 was the aforementioned, a disgustingly fascinating ailment, perhaps parasitic in nature, or perhaps a form of alien bio-terrorism (the jury is still out, more research is needed) causing severe itching and other odd sensations such as the feeling that bugs are crawling beneath one's skin and biting, stinging or pricking them, accompanied by gross skin lesions that produce red, white, blue and black fibers along with white and black granules, like grains of sand.

Immediatley I started itching. I felt the bugs. They were stinging me up and down my legs, o nmy torso, on my behind, everywhere! And the pimples on the back of my neck were surely bound to turn into open, festering, oozing wounds that would excrete fibers and flecks of an undeterminable origin at any moment... I just knew it.

I spent 4 days convinved I was infected with Morgellons. I began preparing for the psychological implications to start: the depression, the brain fog, the fatigue. The constipation. Oh, what a hott, itchy mess I was. Turns out it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Or shall I say thread.
Anyway, I finally made an appointment with my family doctor. I tried to keep my cool while I explained to her about my late-night reading habits and my belief that at any moment now there would be fiber-bearing lesions breaking out all over my body. She also tried to keep her cool, which I so appreciated! (I should mention that I have a wonderful doc who has helped me with huge doses of compassion and has never dismissed me as "that patient" or "the crazy one")
And then she called in a social worker. And I was referred to a therapist and began my treatment.

I would like to say that the story ends there and that the ending was happy. But I think this is going to be a never-ending story. A process. A journey. Turns out that referral was only the beginning. But I do believe that it's because of that that my story has not yet ended.