Twitch

The day after I got back from Italy I started having muscle twitches. The first one started in my shoulder and felt like a spastic heart beat and the second was in my inner thigh, hammering away with similar intensity. A few days later it was full fledged throughout my entire body – my eye, nose, stomach, even toes! At first I wrote it off as fatigue and stress because of everything I had been through the previous weeks (e.g. travel to a foreign country and the diagnosis of CMT) but as it continued on, my curiosity and hypochondriac tendencies started to emerge.

I don’t know about any of you, but when something is wrong with me, I always look to the internet. Unfortunately, as much as the internet can be useful, it almost always leads to the downfall of my psychological well being. I have a headache…OMG it MUST be a brain tumor…no, LOOK, LOOK! It says right here on this site that headaches are a symptom of brain tumors! I have a weird bump-mole thing on my arm too…might as well look that up as well... It’s SKIN CANCER. I need to go to the ER and stop this thing in its tracks before it’s too late! What do you mean I’m overreacting? It very well could be metastasizing to my brain as we speak and you keep yammering away about something benign! Ugh…you’re all useless.

My friends and family are all very aware of my crazy person rants. I know it’s stupid. I’m aware, painfully aware, of how I must sound to people. I can’t help it, though. Whenever something happens to me, even the smallest of symptoms, I always think the worst. This has gotten a tad better over time but this whole twitching business has brought it back out in full force again. The internet says I could have one of many things, most of which are completely harmless conditions (e.g. stress, fatigue, dehydration). That’s not what I see, though. I see MS, ALS, and other horrific neurological disorders that are also listed as possible options.

I recently went to my general practitioner where he ordered me countless blood tests and some weird thyroid ultrasound (which I have yet to do). When I went in to LabCorp the lady drawing my blood just couldn’t help herself:

“Wow, you sure are getting a lot of blood drawn.”

“Mmmhmm, yes, I know.”

“No, like really a lot!”

“YES I KNOW!”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing you crazy bitch…just poke me and get on with your business!”

I left seething and even more paranoid that something must be seriously wrong with me to have had even the phlebotomist questioning me. My blood work checked out a-okay; which was a relief and disappointing all in one. I’m still no closer to figuring out what the hell is wrong with my edgy nerves which seem to have taken on a life of their own lately. I’m not concerned per say, I know no matter what it is that I’m going to be okay, I just pray that okay is really okay and not just…okay.