Hypochondriamatic

I woke up in the middle of the night with a blinding headache and sweating from head to toe. I had felt fine before bed, but my head throbbed and I felt a wave of nausea that was on the fence of stay in stomach/sprint up the esophagus. My first thought was that this must be what menopause feels like.

I tried to go back to sleep, figuring it was just a fluke, but I couldn't shake how much my head hurt and how much I was sweating. I started thinking about how I had missed my blood pressure medication this week. Yes, I have high blood pressure. The doctor believes its from family history and my practice of strapping a bag of chips to my face and eating like a Cool Ranch mule all day long. I like to think it's from being so hot that my blood just boils. Either way, I have to take pills to control said gluttony/hotness. There was a screw up with my refill this week, causing me to miss five days of pills, until I finally got them yesterday.

So my brain switched from menopause jokes and sleepy nonchalance to what if I'm having a heart attack/stroke/lycanthropy episode? I quickly ruled out the latter, as the only thing I've been scratched by recently is a cat, and werecats tend to just sleep all day and lick themselves, which makes it an attractive disease. Regarding the heart attack/stroke angle, I told myself in my best Balkie inner voice, "Don't be ridiculous." But I kept thinking that I'm old enough to not completely write it off. Unlikely, yes. Impossible, not at all.

I thankfully fell back asleep and woke up before work with the same symptoms but a clearer mind. I figured if I was going to die, it would have happened already. I also told my symptoms to TLB, who assured me I was indeed overreacting and probably ate some bad leftovers the night before. Laughing at my paranoia, I asked her if she thought when she'd met me that she'd wind up with the neurotic version of me for the rest of her life.

"No," she said. "You were pretty cocky back then. You felt like you were hot shit having lived in San Diego, you were tan, you were in really good shape...."

I began faux-sobbing, although a part of me was crying a little inside.

I debated calling into work. When you work at home, it's hard to justify taking a sick day because you lose the "don't come in and infect everyone" excuse. Usually if I'm not horking, I'm working. But my mind pulsed like house music at a night club, so I decided to take the day off, sleep, and soak in the aching joy of the sick day, when I feel like I'm 12 again and home from school.

In lieu of the random 11, I'll just do one song today:

Incidentally, the Zombie and I have a little wager on this weekend's Bears/Packers game: the victor gets to post whatever he wants on the other's blog on Monday.