But I’m going to do it anyway. I once went to the Doctor with one eyelid swollen and painful. He looked at it from his wheelie stool on the other side of the exam room and then gave me a script for topical ointment. When I filled the script, it said in big letters, “Do not use on or near eyes.”

Another time, I told the Doctor that the woman giving me a pedicure said I should call my physician and tell them my nailbeds were separating from my skin. The Doctor told me that wasn’t a thing. My favorite recent visit was when I told the Doctor that sometimes my fingers would not bend and they lost sensation. The Doctor bent them a bit and asked if it hurt me. I told him I couldn’t feel anything. He said my hands are fine.

So, this week, I woke with a full blown migraine instead of it gradually getting worse over the course of a day. As with all migraines, there was vomiting. Thirty hours of vomiting that evolved into constant dry heaves after my stomach was emptied. When I wasn’t vomiting, I was sleeping. I couldn’t stay awake for five minutes the entire thirty hours before I asked to be taken to the Doctor.

The Doctor gave me a stroke test. I was completely lucid and both sides of my body were functioning equally, but that was their only guess. Then, they stabbed me in the hip twice and sent me home with a script for migraine meds. After sleeping another 12 hours, I looked at the paperwork from the Doctor visit.

Diagnosis: Personal Aging

“Personal aging? Seriously? If the rest of my life is going to be puking and sleeping, I’d rather die. That is zero quality of life. I’m not doing it.”

“Yes dear.”