Yesterday, I started feeling a dull pain in my chest. This lasted for four hours and kept getting more and more intense. So, I consulted my insurance provider’s health handbook. Basically, the handbook said “call the hospital.”

So, I called the hospital advice line at about 8:00 at night.

“You’d better get somebody to drive you in here. If you can’t, call 911.”

So now I’m thinking “this isn’t that big a deal and I never should have called.” See, my dad is a hypochondriac and I, to balance this, never go to the doctor for anything.

Also, earlier this week, I went in (for the first time in two years) because I had broken out with this horrible red hives across the left side of my body. Turns out it was virulent acne brought on by my changing to a healthier diet.

Let that be a warning to any of you who are thinking of quiting unhealthy food. Twinkies, diet pepsi and pints of ice cream lead to a better complexion.

Back to last night, I realize that I don’t really have anyone I feel comfortable calling about this. I mean, what if it just turns out to be heartburn? By this time, I am feeling totally humiliated, which is just making my chest hurt more.

I finally call one of only three people I know who I feel comfortable asking to do this. I was a little sad when I realized that there were only three people I would feel comfortable asking. Whatever.

So, she drives me to the hospital. Soon, I am in the emergency room with nine people around me. They hook me up with all sorts of wires all over my chest and legs. They attach this thing to my right index finger that seems to be monitoring something - maybe how much I scratch? I don’t know. They take blood, they prod me everywhere. They give me a chest X-Ray. They have me sit there for an hour.

A sheet is all that separates me from an older lady who sounds like she has some really serious problems going on. Now I feel like there are people with really serious problems here at the hospital and I’m taking up their valuable time with my stomach ache.

The doctor comes by and tells me, “I wish more people would come in when they felt chest pains. So many people ignore them thinking they’ll go away and get themselves into a world of trouble as a result.”

Now I feel a little bit better about it, but not much. He tells me that he doesn’t think it is my heart.

Anyhow, two hours and a dozen tests later - not to mention two frozen testicles later, since I was in one of those horrifying hospital gowns and the air conditioner was set to “nippy” - it turns out I have something called costochondritis (a sort of intense muscle problem) brought on “by fatigue and stress.”

They prescribe me 800mg of Ibuprofin every eight hours. The pills are the size of my nose.

One of my other three friends is waiting with my driver when I get out.

I realize that I’ve now put both of them out (though they’re being really nice about it) and it makes me feel like I’ve been kicked in the sternum by Adam Vinatieri.

To tell the truth, I am so humiliated even writing about this that I can feel the muscles in my chest constrict. It is making me nuts (irony!) that I know this is all in my head and, yet, I still can’t control it.

My brain, in essence, has declared war on my body.