Are you currently dying? The answer may surprise you.

I have had several near death experiences in the past week. Although, it turns out they were false alarms and that I wasn’t even close to death. I might be close to death right now, I suppose, but not in any of the ways that I was predicting. If I die immediately, it will be from something I never saw coming. I will now detail all my near death experiences in case you are nearing death in the same way. Or, not nearing death, whatever the case may be.

Near Death Experience Number One: Immediate and Total Kidney Failure

My back hurt the other day, and so naturally I assumed that something was wrong with both my kidneys because I read somewhere that they are located near your lower back and sometimes people just think they have back pain when both their kidneys are actually failing. So, the safe thing to assume when you have a pain in your lower back is that both your kidneys are failing. Since the pain was only on one side, I thought I might have a chance of still having one kidney, but I don’t like to take unnecessary chances, so I decided to go to the doctor. Of course, I hate dealing with people, talking to people, and having people touch areas where my kidneys may or may not be failing, so by ‘go to the doctor’ I mean ‘type symptoms into Google.’

My search results on Google told me that since the pain was dull and corresponded with movement, rather than being constant and sharp, that it was probably a muscle hurting rather than my kidneys getting ready to bail on me. Also, I wasn’t running a fever. I forgot what the other symptoms were. After I confirmed my kidneys weren’t falling out, the back pain kind of went away on its own.

Near Death Experience Number Two: Slow and Fatal Heart Attack

Then, as if the kidney failure issue wasn’t enough to deal with… yesterday afternoon… my hand goes numb. Not my entire hand, but the side of it. Well, not the entire side of it, more like the edge. The edge of my left hand and the side of my left pinkie went numb.

My first step in diagnosing any serious medical condition is to wait and see if it goes away. The next step is to jump to the worst case scenario. By midnight last night, the numbness had not gone away. Therefore, I assumed I was having a heart attack and I began contemplating whether I would die immediately or become a comatose vegetable.

Other serious medical questions came to mind in the middle of the night:  Are heart attacks immediate? Is this one already done, or looming? Maybe this is one of those slow heart attacks. Are those a thing? Should I take a baby aspirin? Sometimes they tell you to take a baby aspirin. Maybe it is a stroke. I wonder if I will lose use of my left side if this is a stroke. Which side do you lose use of where you can’t speak? Can I still speak? There is no one to talk to right now. Maybe I should call someone to see if I can still speak.

Finally, I made myself look up symptoms on Google. I was a bit worried that Google would tell me something was seriously wrong,  I really don’t want to rush around at midnight to an emergency room announcing that my hand feels funny. That would be the worst. If I have to go get medical help for something, I want to be bleeding profusely. I want it to be freaking obvious that I need medical attention, not walking around with my hand being half numb.

The Google results told me that since I am right handed and the numbness was in my left pinkie/ring finger area, and since I constantly sit at my desk like a slouchy person, that I was NOT having a heart attack. Apparently there is some sort of nerve in your arm that runs amuck if you sit around leaning on your elbow too much. I don’t know much about that because I pretty much lost interest once I found out I wasn’t having a heart attack.

Now that I have recovered from my serious health issues, I can begin contemplating the fact that I might be a hypochondriac. If not that, I have had this cough for over a week that I am pretty sure is the bird flu. Maybe I’ll type my symptoms into Google.

For Further Research:

Cure your heart attack with simple arm exercises and by not being slouchy:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5199086_relieve-fingers-left-hand-right.html
Okay, fine… they call it ulnar nerve compression… heart attack is more dramatic and much easier to spell.

How to Volunteer at a Food Bank

Volunteering at a food bank is a great way to touch a lot of food and meet celebrities. Of course, if the celebrities are there, they are going to get to touch all high profile food, like the tomato juice. Don’t expect to get  your hands on any tomato juice.

I was in charge of this milk. ALL of it!

Because I am NOT a celebrity, all I got to touch was boxes of milk that don’t need to be refrigerated. Did you have ANY idea that there is milk that comes in boxes? I must live a terribly sheltered life, because apparently this is a thing.

Jesse Metcalfe holding tomato juice

This is a photo of Jesse Metcalfe holding tomato juice. At first, I didn’t recognize him because they said he was currently on the remake of Dallas. But then, someone told me that he was the guy who mowed the lawns on Desperate Housewives. That is when it all clicked together. Instead of holding tomato juice, imagine this person shirtless with a lawn mower. I met a CELEBRITY! Yea, me!

Look… this is Jesse Metcalfe’s tomato juice!

Of course, by ‘meet’ a celebrity, what I mean is touch the tomato juice of a celebrity with my boxes of non-refrigerated milk. But that STILL COUNTS!

Here I am packing milk into boxes and taking pictures at the same time. I’m a multi-tasker.

Non refrigerated milk is a lot harder to pack than it looks like. See how streamlined these boxes are? This is an arduous task. Plus, everyone got mad at me when I kept falling behind because I stopped to take pictures. I have a BLOG TO WRITE, PEOPLE!

Random picture I felt compelled to take. I’m an ARTIST. I have VISION.

Another advantage of volunteering at a food bank is that you can get pictures of celebrities holding random food items that you can then send to The Bloggess.

I have ALWAYS wanted to send a picture of a celebrity holding a random item to The Bloggess, because in return, you get a picture of… Wil Wheaton Collating Paper. Which I did, and which made  me FURIOUSLY HAPPY.

So… here are some helpful t-shirts for those of you who will be volunteering at food banks in the near future…

I can’t guarantee this shirt will get you near the tomato juice, but it’s worth a shot.

This will help explain why you are continually taking pictures of random things while you are supposed to be packing milk into boxes.

Also… one last picture. I would hate to feel like I held up the line taking all these pictures for no reason.

The final box of food. It’s important to get all the pictures of food while you have the chance.