Been suffering with a peculiar pain in my abdomen this past week, which I seem to get periodically and no one has been able to diagnose. One doctor thought it might be a hernia. Another thought it might be diverticulitis, or a kidney stone. I, being something of a pessimist and phobic hypochondriac was thinking "cancer! gangrene! invulnerable flesh-eating parasites! that thing from Alien! you're going to die!" (I really, really need to work on my optimism and positive mental imaging, don't I?)

Went for a CT scan on Friday at the hospital. I just got a phone call from my doctor with what seems to be an exceedingly rare, and benign, diagnosis. So, the universe doesn't hate me after all! And, I might have been right to mistrust going to a local for-profit radiology lab, and head for a teaching hospital. My doctor told me that he didn't think any local lab (like the one he wanted to send me to) would have got this one right. It's too rare and needs the best CT scanners to see it and the most experienced radiologists to look for it. It's not an infection. It's not gangrene, or a tumor or even a hernia. It's just a twisted or inflamed attachment on the outside of the colon, a self-limiting thing that recurs periodically, lasts a week or two and goes away on its own again. The only known complications are unnecessary surgery due to misdiagnosis! It's not like appendicitis or diverticulitis, and it doesn't get worse or cause other problems. No antibiotics, no chemo, no surgery. Treatment turns out just to be "Take advil for a few days until you feel better." Of course, it'll come back, like it always does, every couple of months, but if this is the treatment, I think I can cope.

What a relief! I think I'll practice being happy all day today! No negative thoughts!