well I am back to delicous cinamin gum officially ending the "dentyne EXTREME nosebleed era" It did occure to me while I was watching my nose bleed in the duke bathroom (patiently waiting to die of a massive stroke ) that my hypocondria might be a little out of controll.
In honor of this I am prepared to fill you in on my personal relationship with impending certain death.
Other hypochodriacs might relate.
At least the rest of you will hopefully understand why I dont spend more time planning for the future.


TOP CONSTANT UNEDUCATED DEATH THREATS (deadliest to least deadly)


1. Brain Conditions: narrowly edging out "heart conditions", brain conditions produce more of a generalized anxiety over time (as opposed to the"heart attack frenzy" one gets from watching the learning channel ) which I think adds up to take the top spot. Other than headaches, which are clearly more of a head thing, your brain doesnt really provide you with any pain feedback. This means you could have a massive tumor in the middle of your brain right now and not even know that it is there. hmmmm does my brain feel tumory right now? that is the point you have no way of telling!!!
In fairness this doesn't really give you the oppertunity to grossly misenterpret benign symptoms like a small lump on your foot as undeniable proof of cancer, but it also isnt providing me with the constant "everythings fine" message i prefer.
In conclusion I think it is the absolute mystery as to what is going on healthwise inside your brain in combination with the devestating consequences of even the smallest ailments that keep "brain conditions" firmly ahead of "heart conditions" in my personal hiarchy of deadly concerns.

Top Deadly Brain Conditions

1. Stroke: can happen anytime, horrible consequences, vertually everthing I do in my life contributes to my eventual likelyhood of getting one.
2. Annyurism/hemmorage: the ultimate blink of an eye death bringers! With all the freaking crap in your brain it just seems inevitable that something will burst sometime.
3. Tumor: why do these things always have to be the "size of _______" like I am not intimidated by a smaller brain tumor and it has the be "the size of a softball" to get my attention
4. Brain Cancer: just sounds deadly
5. Concussion: every time you get a concussion (wich is a lot if you have a giant head target) you are basically now 1-3% dumber.


2. Heart Conditions: I live in constant fear of having a heart attack, it just seems like a really unpleasant way to die. Not to make light but my mother's biological father died when he was 35 which means I have to check "yes" in the "family history of heart problems" box on those life expectancy surveys which in turn then alerts the computer that I am more likely to die than everyone else. I am uncomfortable right now just writing this so lets wrap up the heart section.

Top Deadly Heart Conditions.

1. Heart Attack: this is pretty much the only one. I mean you can say "they had Angina" or "tey suffered from high Cloresteral" but in the end the heart attack will be the deadly killing agent that lashes out on behalf of these ailments
2. That thing that kills young atheletes on the basketball court where they have had an irregular heart beat thier whole lives and then they just drop dead one day: at least i dont have an irregular heart beat oh wait YES I DO oh well at least I dont play basketball (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)


3. The Cancers: wow it seems like everyday there is a new freaking cancer and the best part is that the symptoms are so minor you can interpret almost any physical phenomena as a certain sign of impending amputation.
Since I was 10 and my mother warned me to look out for unexplained lumps on my body because they could be cancer (wow thanks mom) I have been at different times positive that I have had: throat cancer, regular cancer, lung cancer, mouth cancer, skin cancer, breast cancer (boys can get it too), brain cancer, and testicular cancer. I have only been to the doctor about 3 of those I will let you guess which ones.
if I have to rank them it looks like this.

Top Deadly Cancers.

1. Brain Cancer: see above
2. Testicular Cancer: i really like the symetry of having both
3. Lung Cancer: you really need those
4. Everything else: unlimited ways to go


4. Desease: I am probably going to skip this section there is just nothing pleasant about the variety of deseases available to you plus I have deliberatly kept myself as ignorant as possible on most of them.

5. Mental Conditions: Mental conditions enjoy an uneasy seperation from brain conditions in that brain condition offer more of an instant death for the unprepared where as mental conditions provide a protracted unpleasant life for the mostly unaware. that is to say that in most cases people cant comprehend that they are anything but normal no matter how demented they seem to the rest of us. In some ways this is I guess better because at least you are spared knowlege of thehorrible condition inflicted upon you but in other ways it is much worse in that you have no idea what the F is going on.
Imagine if all of your friends and family are involved in a pact to make your life better by not talking to you about your raging schizophrenia. You are walking around thinking you are a completely normal person who gets occasional unexplained glances from people on the street and meanwhile you have absolutly no touch with reality and every conversation you have with a friend is them patronizing you.
At least that would be somewhat pleasant if you didnt figure it out. What about the paraniod schizophrenics you see on the streets who are yelling about being chased by demons or being the unlikely survivor of a series of horrifying assination attempts? They are not shouting at you because they think that is the cliche thing for street people to yell and they are just doing thier job... they actually think these things are happening! This is their reality every day.
You think your day was bad?, imagine waking up every morning and spending the entire freaking day being chased by demons.... it would just be really unpleasant. The same goes double for althiemers. I dont want to talk about it but every time I forget somthing is basically the start of the slippery slope into massive althiemers confusion.


Top Mental Conditions to be Concerned About.

1. Althiemers
2. Schzophrenia
3. Hypocondria


6. INJURY: not quite as scary but I have to include it because 5 years of swimming lessons left me with a healthy fear of spinal injuries (and then later in our co-ed 14 year old bronze medalian classes public errections)

Top Worst Injuries

1. Spinal Trauma
2. Anything that messes up your face


COOL thanks for listening. I have to go to work now but if anyone wants to email me thier own special fears I will post them.
also I apoligize to anyone who suffers from, or has friends or family members who suffer- or did suffer from, any of the conditions listed. It is not my intention to offend.

also the spell check is busted and I refuse to go back and try to make spelling corrections. I am a shitty speller- live with it

Luke