Yes, the whole cycle is simply humiliating. My husband is luckily very understanding, he senses when I'm becomming preoccupied with a symptom or illness, and first reassures me that it's nothing, but then offers to come with me to see the doctor if I feel it would ease my mind. Often seeing the doctor is the only thing that will.
I know it's hard for people who don't have this disorder to understand, but when you truly feel it's a life or death issue, how can you turn a blind eye? In many cases, I am learning now from "history" - if it is a symptom or sensation that I recognize because I have felt it before, then I can pass it over. It's the new and never-before felt symptoms that throw me over the edge of reason. But it's really really really hard to ignore feelings and symptoms that you have no history with.
And I think it's unfair for people to chastise us for it. It's a terrifying feeling, believing you are about to die, believing your children will be crying for you desperately for years and you will not be able to comfort them, believing all the things you want to accomplish in life are lost because you have run out of time.
I am getting better at focussing on that last part - life. I am getting closer to fully embracing the fact that as scary as all the risks in life are, they are not worth missing life altogether. The choice boils down to whether you want your life to be about living or about dying. I want mine to be about living. So that's what I'm determined to make it. Obviously easier said than done - but nothing worth doing is ever easy.
