4.07.2008

Convincing paranoia

So I have this lump in my neck, right below my hairline on the left side of my spine. It hurts to touch it and I almost throw up from the pain if someone massages it. I've had severe tension in my neck and shoulders for the last month. I got a pretty deep massage last week that was painful but helped for..a day.

This weekend I convinced myself that this lump is most definitely cancer - probably lymphoma despite the WebMD articles suggesting if it were a tumor, it'd be hard, immobile and not tender. Mine is movable and tender, and most likely just a swollen lymph node.

As Lampshade and I drove home after dinner at his grandparents house, I am quiet because in my head I am imagining my cancer diagnosis - the doctor telling me the news, the long walk to my car, the tearful phone calls to come. Then telling him I have cancer and only have a few months to live. And then imagining that I wouldn't get to spend a long, fulfilling life with him buying a house, having babies, traveling and loving.

So when he looks over to my side of the car and see tears rolling down my cheeks, I then have to explain the reason for my tears is my overactive imagination and perhaps an intense case of paranoia that I only have a month to live, followed by "Do you think I am crazy?"

We both know that he thinks I am insane and perhaps need a more constructive creative outlet. We'll find out who is right at my doctor's appointment tomorrow.