Hi, so, it's been around a year since I last posted here, I'm Catherine.
When I was last here I was plagued with health anxiety, and well, the old demon's back again. Couple of weeks ago now I came down with a case of what appears to be haemmorhoids, or a fissure; Pain when I wipe, bit of fresh blood from the back end etc. etc. Sadly, that is not how I see it, in my mind, it's bowel cancer, a veritable death sentence. Since then I've been experiencing little stabbing pains in my abdomen, aches in my lower back, a feeling like I always need to go to the toilet, and constipation when I do. All these signs are adding up and basically just screaming to me "the end approaches!", which, well, I have cause to fear death a little more than usual at this point in my life. You see, I'm transgender, and just started medically transitioning 3 months ago to this day; the thought of dying now, or having my lifespan reduced to a handful of years, now that I'm just, after 23 years finally able to see and explore who I truly am, is too horrible to bear.
I've seen a gp who prescribed me some cream, which doesn't seem to be helping much, but at my follow up appointment for hormone therapy I found out I wasn't anemic, which is somewhat encouraging, and I'll be doing an FOBT soon. Where I'm going with all this is that today at work I essentially spent the afternoon in the throes of an anxiety attack, certain that death looms, and, I started to wonder if these symptoms are even real, which led to even more terror over not being able to distinguish reality from my frenzied imagination. I'm getting so scared that I just want to go to the ER and say "I know something's wrong with me and I'm dying, find it!"
I hope someone can make sense of these ramblings and give a scared girl a little comfort.
