Health Scare - or Hypochondriac ?

[gilmore]

... Others here must have come through this point in life too, when for the first time in their lives you stop to consider the possibility of serious illness or death. Please tell me how I can expel these morbid thoughts from my mind and get back to normal life and let any necessary tests and treatments take their course without worrying about the eventual outcome.

I was diagnosed with HIV some 22 years ago, had the first and only AIDS-defining illness in 1999, a touch of cancer that I was told would kill me. (They were mistaken. It didn't.) It hasn't been fun, but there are advantages in at least somewhat coming to terms with one's mortality earlier in life than most have to.

The worst part of a potentially life-threatening illness is the time between symptoms/diagnosis and a treatment plan. There is a mantra that the remedy for the initial uneasiness that we all experience is education, education, education. Overcoming uncertainty is helpful not only in becoming an informed, empowered partner (along with your MD and staff) in your health care management, but also understanding your disease and what the options are has the effect of giving one a sense of empowerment and amelerioates the initial feelings of helplessness that we all experience.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First, you need to see your MD for a physical, and start all those monitoring programs that we all should do as we get older, such as annual prostate exams and a colonoscopy every 10 years starting at age 50, monitoring whatever else we are at risk for, such as high cholesterol, etc, if you don't do that already. These days most cancer can be cured, and most cardiovascular problems can be dealt with, but the key to success is early detection. It's just something we have to learn to do as we get older.