25 Things about Me: #2

2. I fear that my appendix will spontaneously burst and I will die.

No joke. Friends will tell you that I mean business when it comes to pains below the belt, which doesn’t bode well for me since I am a girl. It takes a keen sense of self and being in tune with your body to know the difference between “girl-type” pains and a looming appendix explosion. I am also slightly hypochondric and that only adds fuel to the fire. I often ask aloud to my friends, “How could you tell if you have fibromyalgia?” or “What are the signs of the onset of diabetes (pronounced dye-a-beet-is)?” The questions are endless. I realize that, in fact, I do not have any of these ailments, but if something should spontaneously go wrong with me, and it could, you can’t say I didn’t warn anyone. When asked by a doctor, if I’m unconscious, or a coroner, if things went terribly ire, “Was she suffering from anything?”, my friends can say, “Well, the other day she did ask, “How do you know when your appendix is bursting?”

I remember asking a guy that I worked with, “How do you know when your appendix is bursting?” He, who was an Army medic, told me to go up on my tippy toes and come down really hard on my heels and if I didn’t immediately fall to the floor in pain, I was safe. Let’s just say that I have spent a fair share of time preforming that little exercise.

I’m not quite sure where the fear began, but I can say that the fear has subsided over the years. I think that it doesn’t bother me as much as it did because I can look at people who have survived. There’s my favorite wide receiver, retired Jacksonville Jaguar, Jimmy Smith. There’s also, Ashley Judd, Bret Michaels, Zac Efron and Lindsay Lohen, for goodness sake. I mean if that Lindsay Lohen can survive that with all the stuff she’s put in her body, if I needed to have an appendectomy, it would be a breeze, right?

Then of course there are the people in my life that I know have survived. My grade school friend, Britt; my stepmother, Terry; and my dear friend, Rhea, who had her surgery while she was 6 months pregnant with the 3rd son, they all have made it through unscathed.

I wish that I could say that I can think about these people and it will help to subside the fear, but it won’t. I strongly believe that if I fear the appendix, it won’t burst on me. One can only hope. 

Here are the other revealed 25 things:

1. I was almost born in the vault at the Alabama State Capital. My mother was walking the steps, to induce labor, when a group of black Muslims trying to take over the Capital rushed a nearby radio station. All visitors and employees were taken into the vault for safe keeping. Luckily, I was late. I came three days later.