Hypochondria

Like everyone else, as soon as I hear about someone else's symptoms - even if the "person" is a character on a TV show - I immediately assume I am dying from that, too.

Week before last I had a funny attack of vertigo - I was standing at my computer, and got really dizzy and had to sit down. It felt like the floor raised up. My mom experienced this in her last illness. The emergency room trip that resulted in her cancer diagnosis was caused by her yelling down to me, one Sunday morning, that she thought she was having a stroke, because the floor raised up.

I think dizziness is a common problem in peri-menopausal women, which is what I am - hormonal changes and fluid-retention weirdness being all part of the package, although MedLine Plus that I just searched doesn't say so. I have been feeling kind of vaguely queasey, and off balance, often. MedLinePlus thinks it is more likely that my chronic sinus infections are causing it. And whacking myself in the head all the time can't be helping.

Of course I am sure that whatever brain disorder Nate Fisher has on Six Feet Under, that makes him more at risk for stroke, is what I have, because I watched the episode where he found out he had it the other night.