I've still got my health so what do I care?

I was IMing with a friend earlier and she asked me how I was handling the stress of my new-old job. I answered truthfully, "not very well."

To be specific, I have somehow acquired the Very Bad Habit of channeling all of my stress into my body. Psychosomatic, I am all over you. Somehow my subconscious has chosen my digestive system as the bull's eye, and unfortunately it's a very good shot.

My little ulcer-in-training is a proud little soldier, I tell you. I call him Hermann. Hermann the German, because I first got him here. (Hermann also means "sour dough starter" in German, which I find odd and charming.) I can feel him doing his hundred pushups right there in my lower esophageal sphincter. Wrangling a prescription for 20 mg of Omeprazole out of a Bavarian doctor was quite the feat, as anyone who knows the Germans well can attest. They turn up their noses, as a rule, at Tylenol. Aspirin has a tacit Mr. Yuck label. And the four-syllable drugs (five in German!)... well, for that you have to practically barf up a lung. But apparently my corroded tissue impressed him when he looked down my throat, and I got my Happy Tummy Pills.

This was like 18 months ago. Eventually my chest and my throat stopped hurting and the constant nausea went away, so I stopped taking them. I was really happy to discover the leftovers in my medicine cabinet last week, though. I guess it was the ambassador that pushed me over the edge. I am hoping Hermann will cool his jets for a while though, because I am going home, and I just kinda want all of my internal organs to be functioning properly.

Although at home, 20 mg of Omeprazole are probably OTC. You crazy Americans. Hermann will have lots of company. :-)