911? What's Your Emergency?
Whenever I'm stressed out, it manifests into something funky - like a weird ailments: pseudo chest pains, arthritic paralysis and all that fun stuff that brings me shuffling to the doctors or the emergency room. When am I not stressed out? Last week, I woke up with this huge lump under my ear that extended down to the middle of my neck. The pain was absolutely excruciating. It felt hot and tender to the touch. I thought it must have been the q-tip that broke inside my ear a few months back and got infected. (Don't ask.) In my mind, all I kept saying to myself was, "It's near my brain! I'm gonna die!" My hypochondriacal manias started to kick in and I started dialing my primary care physician to get an emergency appointment. No ER for me, because well, it's flu season and hell if I'm gonna walk into a germ-infested environment and risk being sick. Not that a doctor's office is any cleaner, but at 8am, people are usually there for blood tests. The...