I Don't Want a T-shirt

So, as you might recall I blogged earlier about my knee problems and doing physical therapy.  Well, that was finished last week and now I’m doing home exercises for about a week or two and if I continue to experience the minimal pain I’m suffering (I’m at about a 3-4) then I need to call and make an appointment to see what else PT or even the doctor can do.

I mention this because I’ve been thinking a lot about my age and the way my body has changed as I’ve gotten older.  I don’t look my age –38— but I certainly feel it.  I felt it on Saturday morning around two or three in the morning when I thought I might be having a stroke. 

I was sound asleep having a very strange but fun dream about the vampires of Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood—that’ll teach me to not read the books and watch the show based off the books at the same time.  Anyway, I was dreaming and then I was awake choking on the taste of sulphur.  I couldn’t breathe.  I grabbed the cup of water I keep on my night stand and started chugging.  Right after that my left arm and leg started throbbing to the point of numbness. 


Now my father had two major strokes with a couple of minor ones thrown in the mix and it was the second stroke that killed him.  It’s why I can get a bit paranoid.  Anyway, I thought I was having a stroke but I couldn’t remember if the taste of sulphur was a symptom.  So, I grabbed my phone and started searching.  And yes I realize now, that if I was able to do a Google search on my cell phone I was probably not having a stroke.  Something my friend pointed out to me the next day when I was relaying my adventure in hypochondria.

Anyway, so I’m looking up the symptoms and here’s a short list of what I found.  There are a shit-ton more but I only saw these when I was reading.  Also, here’s a link, that will give you more information and talk to your/a doctor for more info. 

• Arm weakness/numbness
• Lopsided smile
• Slurred speech
• Smell of toast

So, rather than go to the emergency room and be told it was a false alarm I decided to sit in my dark room and smile like a fool, repeat, “Hi my name is” and sniff the air for the scent of toast.  My friend thinks I was an idiot and not in a good way.  I mean true I probably looked and sounded like a nut grinning like a Cheshire cat, eyes wide, listening for slurred speech and smelling the air for toast.  I should have gotten up and gone to the emergency room because what if it had been a real stroke and not just soreness? 

I didn’t go because I didn’t want to waste people’s time, my money and feel like a fool for being a hypochondriac.  But, also I didn’t want to think about what a stroke would mean to me.  It’s a symbol that even though I look like I’m in my mid-twenties I am, in fact, in my late thirties, nearly to my forties.  It means I’m not young anymore and my body is starting to betray me.  My knee may never get back to one hundred percent, I won’t ever lose weight as quickly as I did when I was in my twenties, and when I exercise I get winded a lot faster than they use to.  Most of this is because I am out of shape but some is because I’m old.  And it scares me. 

I don’t want to be sick or have to deal/fight shit off to prove that I’m a fighter.  I already know I’m a fighter.  And fuck those people who need me to confirm it through battling cancer or heart trouble.  And I know people don’t expect that but it’s what I’ve noticed when others get really sick.  They call them a “fighter”, and make t-shirts to support them, and admire them.  You shouldn’t have to be sick to be seen a certain way.  Living life in general is fucking fight enough.  Hell I should get a t-shirt with that on it. 

And don’t get me wrong I’m not dismissing those who are battling real diseases.  They are fighters and they deserve support and admiration and even a t-shirt.  I’m just being a whiny ass bitch who needs to get over it.  But I am scared and really I don’t want a t-shirt.