For the past 6 months, I’ve been more sick than I’ve ever been. According to the University of Michigan (here) I don’t have hypochondria. What I do have currently is best illustrated in the visual depiction on the right.
Hypochondria is about imagined illnesses. There is nothing imagined in the 14 gallons of phlegm I’ve coughed up. We store it out back, in one of those plastic paint buckets. There is nothing imagined about the days of work lost (and money; my employer insists on NOT having sick or personal days until one has worked for them at least a year).
It’s time to take matters into my own hands. It’s time not to be sick. It’s time to feel good. It’s time to not keep looking down at the tissue with revulsion (and then insist that the wife look at it). It’s time to swab the dog with that anti-dander stuff. It’s time to spray the entire apartment in bleach. It’s time to think about wearing a Tyvek® body suit with respirator.