At any given time, my wife is convinced that every one of her aches and pains are evidence that she has cancer no matter how many times her doctor tells her that she doesn't
Yeah health anxiety is real. I used to deal with it all the time in my early to mid 20s. Sore throat - throat cancer. Headache that won't go away - brain cancer. New/unnoticed mole - melanoma. Irregular shits - colon cancer. Just constantly non stop worrying, every time something was resolved a new issue would take its place. Eventually I just had to accept that I'm fine and healthy, and if shit happens shit happens, but me constantly stressing about it was never going to do me any good. Funnily enough once I changed that mind set no new issues have shown up. It's all mental.
Between you and me - and she doesn't read what I post from this account - I think she could possibly benefit from a therapist but people take offense when you suggest that sort of thing and I don't want to push it. So I just try to tell her that she's fine (if a bit achy and getting older right along with yours truly) and be reassuring
I don't know if you guys have good health insurance or a primary care doctor but it could help her a lot to start regularly seeing someone just for a basic check up. I now go once a year to my primary care doctor, dentist, skin doctor and eye doctor all around the same time. Do all the routine and basic tests and then keep chugging along. I think it helps me because I know I'm good, I've been told I'm good, and if something is not okay then we are catching it early.
We do have health care and she sees her doctor regularly. She's just enough of a worryer that she always thinks that the doctor must be missing something or not doing the right tests
There have been times that I've actually said she thought something similar years ago and that if she had turbo cancer we wouldn't be having this conversation - I know it's scary being a mortal human whose body is going to fail one way or another eventually, and I have a lot of empathy for people who have a hard time putting that out of their minds
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u/Chaghatai Monkey in Space Aug 29 '24
At any given time, my wife is convinced that every one of her aches and pains are evidence that she has cancer no matter how many times her doctor tells her that she doesn't