This is gonna be a long post so please bear with me

2 weeks ago (6 days after receiving my Covid vaccine) I noticed a few swollen lymph nodes on my collarbone. This made me have the worst panic attack of my life because feeling a lump under your skin isn't really a good sign. I found out that they were just a reaction to the vaccine and any normal person would've stopped caring about them when they found that out. I, however, obsessed over them for days. I couldn't ear, sleep, or do anything because my mind was so fixated on those fucking lymph nodes. All I wanted was for them to just go away so I could have peace of mind. A few days after that I started getting this really intense tightness in my throat that would sometimes stay for 30 mins. I convinced myself I had anaplastic thyroid c\*, which is one of the deadliest c\*. I decided to go to the ER to get it and the lymph nodes checked out because I was convinced I was dying. They took a bunch of blood tests and a chest scan- all of which came back perfect- but they informed me that they found what looked like a blood clot near my right shoulder. They sent me to have an ultrasound to see if it was one. I was ecstatic because everything came back fine, which meant that I didn't have c\*. The doctor came back and told me they didn't see a blood clot in the ultrasound, but they gave me blood thinners for it just in case. I left the hospital finally feeling happy and good. That didn't last long though because right when I got home I looked up blood clots and it said that blood clots near the chest (where mine apparently was) are very rare and usually are a sign of c\*. This sent me down another spiral ofc and by the end of the day I was having a full on panic attack. While I was having this panic attack, part of the left side of my face and ear felt like they went numb which made me freak out 100x more. I genuinely thought I was having a stroke and was about to call 911 but I tried to sleep it off. I woke up around 30 times throughout the night, convinced that I wasn't gonna make it to the morning. 

When I woke up, I felt like I couldn't push my stomach muscles out at all (this was most likely due to the fact that I'd been eating like 500 calories a day for a week) and that terrified me because I thought I'd had a stroke in my sleep that caused nerve damage to my stomach. I obviously went to Dr. Google and he told me I had stomach or pancreatic c\*, both of which are quite deadly. That whole day I was obsessed with pushing out my stomach and trying to poop because I felt like if I pooped it meant I didn't have stomach/pancreatic c\*. I did finally end up using the bathroom that night, but my worries didn't subside because I made the STUPID decision of looking up what the deadliest type of c\* is and I found that it's \*TW\* glioblastoma, an incurable brain c\*. I looked at the symptoms and read every single Reddit and Instagram post in existence about it. I decided the pain in my throat I was feeling was actually a type of seizure, and seizures are the most common symptom of glioblastoma. I convinced myself I had short term memory loss; I kept thinking back to what I did earlier in the day or the day before and if I didn't remember tiny details I started panicking. And the blood clot in my chest was definitely because of a brain tumor that had metastasized to another part of my body. I felt so hopeless. My long distance boyfriend and I are looking forward to the future because we have a trip planned out for the summer and we're supposed to be moving in together in a year, and I completely lost all excitement for it because I was convinced these are my last days. My grades suffered because I did no work at all and even thinking about the future made me tear up. 

Then, a couple days ago, I found the worst possible c\* after doing more searches of glioblastoma, and that is DIPG, a brain c\* that has a basically 0% chance of survival. This has absolutely WRECKED me because one of the symptoms is numbness or droopiness on one side of the face. I thought back to how the left side of my face went numb last week and I completely lost it. I read more of the symptoms and one of the most common ones is not being able to move your eyes to the side. I've been obsessively doing that for the last couple days to make sure I haven't lost my ability to do it, but if I think something looks different I start to panic. Another symptom is loss of balance and I woke up in the middle of the night with my left leg being kinda numb and it freaked me out so bad I started crying. I'm so so so terrified of this disease and ever since I found out about it I've been petrified of going to sleep because I'm so scared I'll wake up with a new symptom. I just can't stop thinking about the what ifs. I know this disease is extremely rare (around 300 cases per year in the US and it's very, very rare in people over the age of 12) but the statistics bring me no comfort. I went to the doctor yesterday and got referred to a therapist to help me with my hypochondria which I'm thankful for because I really need help. I know it's all in my head but it's incredibly hard for me to not think about every "what if" scenario :/