My vitals

I have been thinking about my health a lot lately.

With a couple of friends fighting their way out of serious long-term illnesses, I am reminded that I am as mortal as they come. I have recently experienced some extremely minor health nuisances that could have been signs of a greater problem had they become chronic (They have, for the record, subsided as expected). In addition, I will be forced to change health insurance as of my birthday due to my move to Georgia.

The pessimist in me worries about the worst imaginable product of all of these circumstances. In the back of my mind, I worry that I may have contracted Mad Cow Disease, and that the new policy won’t cover the necessary treatment because it would be a pre-existing condition. I then worry that the illness will present as horribly as possible, and that my friends will be forced to hold car washes to help defray my medical costs. Unfortunately, these car washes will be shut down due to the drought. As a result, an unattractive nurse will walk into the Mad Cow Ward of the local hospital, lift me into her excessively flabby arms, and carry me out of the hospital. Once outside, she will deposit me into a ditch from which my friends will walk with their heads down and shaking, wishing there was something else they could have done.

I know.

Seriously, though. The combined traits of worrier and dreamer that I possess have the capacity to make my worst medical fears seem very real, especially when my health coverage is in flux. I can worry myself into an amazing frenzy over a cough or a canker sore, and every little itch, bump, creak, tingle, or asymmetrical fart will further convince me that something is wrong… bad wrong. At some point, reason returns, and I become calm once again.

This has happened before, but this time is different. It is different in that I now value my life in ways that I have not valued it before. I am rather sure that this is because I am sharing much of it with someone else. It is no secret that I endured a bit of self-destructive behavior in my twenties, and that remnants of that behavior splashed into my early thirties. Though I have often made the statement that “the leading cause of death is life,” there are decisions that I made back then that I would change if I could. Every time I get a chest cold, I regret every drag from “back when” because I know I inhaled as a result of a lower valuation of my life than I now acknowledge.

Fortunately I do have my health (*knocks on wood*), and I am lucky (really?) enough to have realized how much I love being alive under circumstances which allow me to do something about it.

I guess I tell you all of this to get to a point. I clearly haven’t been updating you on every piece of minutiae in my life lately. That is largely because I have been spending a lot of time enjoying it and not very much time thinking about it. Things are wonderful. I am very happy. And I am awake and doing my best to appreciate every moment.