The Four Stages of Googling a "Medical Emergency"

       Everyone has had one of those moments where they find a funny red spot on their hand, or they have three bruises on their leg that they don't remember acquiring, and believe until someone talks them down that they are, in fact, going to die.  I have significantly more of these moments than other people.  Whether this is from hypochondria or anxiety I am unsure, all I know is that I frequently end up on Internet quests to save myself from certain death.

        There are four steps to a semi-hysterics Google search, each being equally important to the healing process and each being equally horrifying in every way.

1. Ending up at WebMD.  It just happens.  As many times you say you won't end up checking off every symptom you're convinced you might possibly have, somehow it's two a.m. again and you're cuddling with a laptop and frantically trying to decide if you're not hungry because you're tired or if you're tired because you're not hungry.
2. Finalizing a list of symptoms.  As you check your list of symptoms, giving in to your Obsessive-Compulsive tendencies, you realize that you could be perfectly normal.  After all: fatigue, anxiety, body aches or pains, nervousness, and shaking, are all common in high schoolers.  What student isn't so stressed that they don't have full body tremors accompanied by pain radiating through their core?
3. Getting your results.  And having a full-blown freakout because Good Lord they are terrifying.  From the symptoms listed above it is suffice to say that I am suffering from Postpartum Depression, which truly is a shame considering I have never been pregnant and have no baby to show for the struggle I am currently going through.  I am also going through Cocaine withdrawal, which is very painful, and I cannot imagine how bad it must be for the people who had actually done cocaine.  Additionally I have mad cow disease, a brain tumor, the Plague, and I've been poisoned with Cyanide.  So that's unfortunate.
4. Freaking out and calling a real doctor.   This is the stage where you will be told multiple times that you are absolutely crazy, and that you need to quit looking up medical problems.  At this point I am usually in semi-hysterics because not only am I dying but I am going to die in the most horrific way possible: I'll be a depressed person going through withdrawal whose limbs are most likely rotting off because I've somehow managed to contact the Plague while living in Suburbia, and if that doesn't kill me while I still have the dignity of dying with the anguish of being misunderstood and miserable at least I have the Cyanide poisoning to finish me off.

Have a happy day.