Gray's Annatomy: Also, I'm Dying

I don't mean to brag or anything, but I was born to not be a doctor.  It's almost like God specifically crafted me to be the perfect non-physician.  And it's not just that I'm a squeamish hypochondriac who giggles whenever she hears the word "sphincter," I'm also kind of an insensitive jerk.

A few years back, I accidentally stepped on my sister's toe AND BROKE IT.  "It hurts so bad," she whimpered quietly, hobbling to the freezer to get some frozen peas.  "Are you calling me fat?" I replied.

The moment I truly realized that I had no bedside manner, however, was during my freshman year of college.  It was the dead of night, and my darling roommate, Carrie, was having some kind of violent cough attack.  I didn't wake up--so to be honest, I don't actually remember this happening--but apparently I thrashed about beneath my blankets and bellowed, "SHUT THE F*** UP!"  Two minutes later, I actually woke up.  "Are you okay, Carrie?" I asked, my voice full of concern.  "Can I get you anything?"  She looked at me with fear in her eyes.  "I don't trust you at all," she replied.

I don't remember much about the rest of that night, because I, being the sweet, loving person that I am, went immediately back to sleep.  This was rather particularly horrible of me, because Carrie ended up being taken to the hospital that night.  I must have opened my eyes briefly during the wee hours, because I remember noticing that she--and my blanket--were gone.  "That bitch took my blanket," I murmured dreamily, drifting back to undeserved sleep.

The good news is, Carrie was fine, she just had Swine Flu or something, and she, for whatever reason, actually still chooses to be my friend today.  But the point is, when confronted with other people's sicknesses, I am emotionally unmoved.  Which just means that, if there is any sort of poetic justice to this world, I deserve to be the MOST SICK person of ALL.  Which is great, because I am also, as previously stated, a semi-hypochondriac.

This is a completely undoctored photo of that time I was on Grey's Anatomy.

I have been waiting my entire life to be told that I'm dying.  First, there was the weird lump behind my ear, which they told me was probably nothing, but I still think contains a piece of my unborn twin.  Then, I started randomly collapsing--which, it turns out, is fairly common for people like me who "don't like the taste of water."  But they still had to run a bunch of tests on my heart, which turned out to be healthy despite having an irregular beat.  "Your heart is weird," my doctor told me, "but it won't kill you."  Funny, people have said the same thing about me.

Recently, however, my only health concern has been this horrible asthmatic sea lion cough.  I've had it on and off for 22 years, but only now have my doctors decided to figure out why.  Naturally, I'm assuming the worst.  If having a PhD from WebMD has taught me anything, it's that if you think you have a paper cut, a cold, or a sore muscle, what you probably actually have is cancer.  It doesn't matter if my cough is just a temporary thing that happens when I'm around dust and smoke.  It's probably still Bubonic Plague.

Which brings me to where I am now, coughing spastically and convinced that bad karma has doomed me to a short and germy life.  A coworker just stopped by my desk to ask if the doctor has determined what's wrong yet.  "Nope," I told him before also blurting, in my paranoia, "it's probably a terminal disease!!"  The coworker nodded distractedly, drifting away toward the kitchen.  "At least you're not contagious, then, right?"



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