I'll Be Dead in Two Weeks

I’m a hypochondriac. It’s not something I’m proud of. I’m also terrified of doctors, which leads to an awful lot of self-diagnosis on the internet. It’s not a good combination.

In the past two years, I had convinced myself that I had any number of diseases, including SARS, West Nile Virus, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Mad Cow Disease, parasites of varying origins, the Ebola virus, flesh-eating diseases, vitiligo, Bell’s palsy and lead poisoning, just to name a few.

Two weeks ago I began having a pain in the center of my chest. On Friday of that week, I told my friend, Jamie, that I had Hodgkin’s disease. Now, I don’t really know anything about Hodgkin’s disease, other than my cousin had a tumor removed from his chest due to Hodgkin’s, but I was undeterred. Jamie asked if this was a recent contraction of Hodgkin’s, or if I’d had it for a while and was only just now confiding in her. I told her that I had acquired it on the past Monday. Despite my emphatic proclamation, she insisted I didn’t have Hodgkin’s. I quickly dismissed her, though, as her judgment was clearly lacking.

My brother seemed skeptical, as well, however. So, I went to WebMD, and by Sunday night I’d learned that I did not have Hodgkin’s, and instead had paraesophageal hernia, which, as I understand it, is a kind of hiatal hernia that strangles your stomach and intestines. It can also make your chest hurt. As if that weren’t bad enough, there was also a possibility that it was esophageal cancer, but I couldn’t bring myself to think about that. I was too busy losing sleep over the hernia. The next day, I mentioned my new self-diagnosis to another friend, who convinced me to try the chiropractor before purchasing a burial plot.

Well, I went to the chiropractor, Dr. Guy, who enjoys the exclusive and privileged status as one of the handful of people who I allow to touch me, and I explained what was going on. I somberly broke the news: I was fairly certain I had paraesophageal hernia, or worse, esophageal cancer. He said he was pretty sure I didn’t have either of those things, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t serious. I was in pain, after all. He began asking questions: was I in a car accident? Did I recently take a blow to the chest or collar bone? I’m clumsy, so it was certainly a possibility, but I think I would have remembered a blow like that. But it made me wonder: what the heck did he think I did when I left his office? Fight club?

As it turns out, the first rib on my right side moved out of place. He said it definitely could have been aggravated by sleeping wrong, using a computer, slouching, or coughing, but without an initial injury it seems unlikely that sleeping or computer work, alone, would have done this.

Regardless, he sat me in a chair, and got behind me. He put his right arm under my right arm, and put his left arm over my left shoulder. He put the ball of his left hand on the top of my sternum and put his right hand on his left hand. Then he said, “This is going to hurt. Just take a deep breath and try to relax.”

“How bad?” I asked.

“How bad what?” He asked.

“How bad is it going to hurt?” I clarified.

“A lot,” he said. “Just keep breathing.”

Perfect.

It was then that I had a fleeting thought: This pain isn’t so bad. I could live the rest of my life feeling as though I had a chimpanzee repeatedly kicking me in the chest. After all, I’d already lived like this for a week, so I mean, how bad could it be going through rest of my days taking shallow breaths, not being able to look to my left, and wincing any time I tried to lift either arm? I could adapt, right? Suddenly realizing he already had me in a bear hug and wasn’t letting go, I was resigned. So, I took a deep breath.

He pushed the top of my sternum down toward my feet. Oh. My. God. I nearly lost consciousness. I can’t describe the pain. I think there might have been screaming involved, but I couldn’t swear that it was my own voice. It seemed far away, like an indeterminable and wounded animal caught in a trap somewhere deep in the forest.

Three times he did this. Three. Times. By the end, I melted into the chair, a fleshy, gasping mess of what I once was. No longer a human form, I slid off the chair and into a heap on the floor where I wept quietly on my knees, ashamed of the amoeba-esque mass I had become. The only sounds were my own sobs and the softly fed Muzak through the office’s speakers. Being brutalized to a clarinet-led instrumental of “if you like piña coladas” only added to my humiliation.

I have had to go back for adjustments almost every other day since then, and I’m still not done. While I do feel better, I have to admit that I’m not looking forward to more treatments, and for the first time, I’m glad my crappy insurance only pays for 20 visits a year.