an ahypochondriac

so what. i just made up another word...but i actually used my latin root learnage from my high school anatomy class to create it. i'll give you a quick lesson and break down this big long intimidating word. i'm sure you've heard of the term hypochondriac before...all i did was tac on an "a" at the front. well, to be honest, the break down doesn't really make sense...because the way i translated it it means "pertaining to not enough cartilage" or something like that when the term really means someone who is paranoid that theres always something crazy wrong with them. however, my "a" on the front means "not," which does make sense. so, by scrapping my translation, taking the real definition, and tacking on the "a", it means that i am not always insisting that i'm about to die. as a matter a fact, i'm quite the opposite and one day its gonna come back to really kick me in the butt.

that was a nice long preface to the whole reason why i had to go home last weekend. i've spent the past three weeks or so trying to ignore the pain on the front side of my right ankle. as usual, if something hurts, i'll just walk it off and wait for it to fix itself...sans advil or application of ice. this is pretty typical me. ask anyone who knows me and they would agree...i'm the last person thats gonna take any medication or do anything about it. if it gets really bad, i'll prolly casually mention it to someone to see if they have any insight to what the cause may be. slowly the pain crawled its way down to the knuckle of my big toe (if big toes even have knuckles) and began throbbing. mid-week last week i was in near tears. it was at that point that i decided to actually call my parents and ask what to do. oh yea, the pain was that serious. okay...so i went and played a frisbee game right after i hung up the phone. but you know i can't miss a frisbee game...and it didn't hurt so much once i got into the game.

since the health center prolly wouldn't have any idea of what to do, they wanted me to go home and see our chiropractor. so, after the g-day game saturday (where the football team scrimmages itself...so we won, of course) i hitched a ride home with colette. whenever i wiggled my toes (which kinda hurt) it would make this squeaky noise/feeling...like rubbing two balloons together, that kinda vibration squeak thing. i made my parents feel my foot, who about had a fit. my foot was really swollen and they were insisting that i had broken my foot, would have to have surgery, and wouldn't be able to work at camp this summer. i don't know what the real term for that behavior is, but its like psychoworrierac something or rather. i went to bed with that not-so-encouraging news and the next day after church we paid a visit to the chiropractor's house (since he's closed sundays).

pop! crack! pop! ugh!

he didn't need to x-ray it or anything. apparantly i had just messed up my ankle, which caused a chain reaction and messed up my toes. of course, the perscription was some tlc (with 15 minutes of ice) and some orthopedics. whew. safe and sound with that one.

of course, there have been some times when i didn't take the necessary percautions of informing elders of my injuries, which has given me some pretty unique scars and stories to tell:

• there was that time when i was doing these backward flips in the shallow end of the neighborhood pool. i guess i was pretending to be a dolphin...or humpback whale...or some kind of marine animal and seeing how many times in a row i could do it. one. two. three. four. five. six. sebun. etnin... of course, a child can get pretty dizzy after doing so many flips. i kinda lost which direction i was propelling myslef and flipped my way headstraight right into the edge of the pool. sure. it hurt pretty bad. i got out and yes, blood was gushing from the back of my head. instead of letting someone know, i headed right up to the bathroom, dobbed it for about 10 minutes with a few loads of tissues, and made my way back down to the pool (i don't think i got back in, though) why did i not tell my parents, you ask? i wanted to spend the night at my friend brittany's house. and i did...my head throbbing the whole time as we fell asleep watching gordy. now all that remains of that day at the pool is a one inch bald spot on the back of my head...and the memory, which is surprising, considering.

• over the mlk holiday, my family and my aunt's family always went up to the cabin in the pocono (?) mountains out in good 'ole PA. well, gabby (my cousin), becca, and i would always explore the woods. we especially loved the old run-down cabin (which just so happened to be my uncle's cabin that their family built as a summer home or something) because it was so stinking cool. well, this particular year, some stupid teenagers had burned the thing down to the ground. the cabin was built on a steep slope right next to a small stream. well, there had been no snow that year, but there was an ice storm the night before. i was walking along near all the scraps on the edge of a steep slope and my foot slipped on some ice. i caught myself, but i had a funny feeling in my leg. it didn't really hurt, so i got up and we started to make moss dams in the stream (why? who knows...thats what we did). after awhile, though, my leg really started feeling funny. i tried pulling up my right pantleg, but my jeans wouldn't go above my knee. there was only one other way to check it out...so becca and gabby laughed histarically and pointed their fingers at me while my legs were exposed to the cold air. and there it was, just above my knee, a deep gash about two inches long and then a scratch that went the rest of the way up my leg. it was deep enough that it wasn't bleeding so much. but to wipe off the blood that was there, i grabbed the only thing that looked clean...a green leaf off a nearby tree. analyze this. green leaf...middle of winter in pa...mountains...what else could this have been but rhododendron? well, thats the conclusion my parents came up with some time later, but thank God i wasn't allergic. why didn't i tell my parents about this, may you ask? well, it was my mom's birthday and i didn't want her to have to spend the day in the hospital. i now have a lovely scar just above my right knee to remember that day.

it takes a long time to tell these stories...so i'll spare you from more. but the list goes on. with illnesses, i don't go to the doctor or take ib profen for headaches. why? because i am an ahypochondriac. i like to pretend that nothing is wrong...which really doesn't work out for me too much. perhaps i should reform my ways and pay a visit to the doctor a little more...