"I feel dizzy. It's an aneurysm! I can feel it!"
I remember my sister whispering those words from the twin bed a few feet away late one night when she was seven or eight. I sunk under the covers to protect myself and my dolly from the imminent explosion of blood and brain matter that she stated would soon cover the room, but woke up the next morning to find her skull remarkably intact. It wasn't an aneurysm—or the brain tumor she had identified as a viable back-up option. And the mild cough she'd picked up at school the week before wasn't pleurisy or a sign of a collapsed lung. And the weekly bouts of appendicitis she's continued to experience for the past 35 years have, miraculously, never resulted in surgery.
My sister has hypochondria, or—as the condition has been rebranded in the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—"Illness Anxiety Disorder" (IAD). I, on the other hand, regularly share potentially germy beverages with family and friends, frequently purchase chewing gum packed with controversial artificial sweeteners, and often eat food off the floor regardless of the five-second rule. When a "helpful" stranger came up to me when I was nine months pregnant and let me know that the first case of Zika virus had been identified in Los Angeles County, where I live, I simply replied: "Cool. Thanks."
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