For a while now I've been collecting really random symptoms, most of which I've written off as anxiety. Chest pain? Check. Numbness in my face? Check. Trouble breathing? Check. Dizzy spells? We're best friends these days. But then I discovered a rather large lump on the back of my neck, which sent me into a tizzy - I swear the neighborhood I grew up in is a non-Hodgkins lymphoma cancer cluster (I blame the Brookhaven National Lab) and lumps in the neck were everyone's first sign. Thanks to Dr. Google and my already-present anxiety, I spent the past few days convinced I had cancer and that it had spread to my bones (lump on spine? Check!) and that was it - I was done for.

Okay, so maybe I wasn't that neurotic. Alright, alright, I totally was. My mom jokes that her tombstone is going to read, "I told you I was sick!" Maybe the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree.

A trip to the doctor helped to calm me down. Yes, all those are side-effects of anxiety and that's likely all they are. But with a fever, bone-deep exhaustion and a rather disturbingly swollen lymph node, something sketchy is taking over my body. And when I do it up, I do it up right - the last few times I was really run-down I ended up with a) mono, b) shingles, c) a lung infection - yes, d) all of the above.

What 20-something gets shingles for crying out loud?

So I've been relegated to bedrest, fluids, echinacea and more rest. They drew more blood than I swear I had in me and the results should be in bright and early Monday morning. If the white blood cell count is elevated more than she'd like, yay for more bloodwork!

I'm bummed that I won't be able to visit the Reillys and Jack post-surgery - I really wanted to give them love and hugs. And Sammy is producing more snot than I knew a toddler could be capable of - and he's apparently well-versed in the fine art of getting it all over everything - so it looks like it'll be just Jay making the trip down this weekend.

The upside to Sammy being sick? Benadryl. Maybe we'll get a full night's sleep for the first time in months.