Imagined Illnesses

When you’ve no medical history, it seems like everything is out to get you. Some days I sit and stare at the faces of my daughters. In one I see my eyes, the one that gets lazy when I’m tired that I have to force to open, the other has my cupid's bow and sleeps on her tummy with her bum in the air the way I liked to as a child.

I love to see my face in theirs because it’s the only mirror I have. While you might look at your reflection and see the start of the crow’s feet your mother has or the age spots that formed from too many glorious days in the sun in the 80s before we knew all about broad spectrum this and UVB that, I don’t have that glimpse of what I might look like in 10 or 20 or 30 years.

I’m ageing fresh, with no familial map to help me see what my future holds. I’m adopted, so everything that happens to my face, my body, my genetic makeup is a surprise.

Every blood relative I have is below the age of three and so when I look in that mirror of relationship, it’s like Benjamin Button, I can only see myself ageing backwards.

There’s more to this mystery than what I look like of course. It has meant that every new doctor or nurse I’ve met with their medical history chart in hand and pen poised to tick boxes has to be told the circumstances of my birth.

“Is there any family history of heart disease/mental illness/cancer?”

“I’ve no medical history.”

The pen always hovers, sometimes there’s a sideways glance, usually their humanity or training kicks in and they move swiftly on but sometimes there’s a comment that they do not mean to hurt but does. Like at a booking visit for my last pregnancy when the midwife, on hearing that I couldn’t answer her questions, said, ‘Oh great, this will be the quickest one of these I’ve had to do all day’ and flashed me a big happy grin.

Yes, isn’t it great that I don’t know if my birth mother had breast cancer at 40 or if there’s a history of dementia on my father’s side? I’m delighted this will go quickly and you can grab a coffee before the next one.

I know she didn’t mean to say something that would be like a kick to me, I know she meant that I’d be through my appointment quickly too, I don’t expect everyone I meet to have to consider what it’s like to just not know.

When I was 30 I went and had a full medical check. I got the works: blood, heart, bowel screening, lungs, absolutely everything I could get them to check I did and it all came back perfectly. But then I was 30 and it would have been worrying had it not.

But now, in my 40s I think I should go again. I’m a mum now, responsible for two little lives. I keep looking at moles wondering if they’ve grown, I’m thinking of my bone density and worrying about my memory.

I’ve invented a whole list of imagined ailments that I’m sure are just going to get worse and worse as time goes on. Now, there’s nothing actually wrong with me and in the great scheme of things I don’t spend a vast amount of time dwelling on what will get me in the end, certainly not enough to make me give up wine or exercise as regularly as I should.

And of course, I know that things happen to people all the time. Strange cancers come out of the blue, MS with no other cases in the family, freak accidents that leave you paralysed or worse. But as I get older, I find myself envious of friends and family that say ‘oh I think I’ve arthritis in my fingers, just like my mam’ or, ‘I’ve had my cholesterol tested, I have to be careful, that’s what got my nana’.

Knowing there’s disease in your family might seem like a strange thing to be jealous of but here we are.

You might think some people wish they had your beautiful new kitchen, I’m over here lusting after your detailed medical history!

It's what happens isn’t it as you get older, you start to think about what might go wrong. You see mums and dads taken too young, watch as friends battle through illness and you can’t help but touch wood that you’ll be okay.

Each decade means we pay closer attention to the state of our health service, each renewal date has us wondering about sufficient levels of coverage and insurance, a new pandemic has us questioning our underlying health conditions. And all of that is when you’re in full possession of the facts. Imagine that when you don’t know who your parents are, or you had a dad who left and never made contact again or your grandparents were from a different country where records and memories are vague.

And I know you’re thinking, ‘ah there’s an easy way to fix that.’ Just trace your birth family. Bingo, problem solved! But I think we’ve all watched enough episodes of Long Lost Family to know that it’s not always that straight forward. Anyway, I have my mum and dad, there aren’t any others for me. And if not being able to fill out a medical questionnaire is the price I have to pay for them, I’m okay with that.

I’m a writer so of course, I’m prone to an overactive imagination and for a while, I did think a call from Buckingham Palace would come at any moment and because of a dalliance Prince Charles had with an Irish cocktail waitress I’d have to reassure the Queen that I wasn’t after her crown.

I’m mostly over those grandiose fantasies but I do sometimes sit over coffee, watching faces go by, searching for my own in the crowd so I can ask them – what’s going to get me in the end?

Imagined Illnesses

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