ON BECOMING A HYPOCHONDRIAC

I have decided that I am becoming a hypochondriac, we all know what that is don't we? It is someone who keeps imagining that they have some kind of illnesses all the time.
Everyday I wake up feeling as if I am 100 years old and as the day progresses that seems to fade because I do get to feel a bit younger, more like my real age of 68. However also as the day goes on I get to feel as if there is something wrong with me, my back, my head, my stomach, my feet. You name it I seem to have it, nothing life threatening or anything like that, just some minor complaint which seems to incapacitate me for the day. Mostly I get tired with the urge the withdraw to my bed. I am convinced this is all in my head.
The women in my family through the generations did withdraw to their beds when they reached the menopause. Yes, I jest not. My grandmother or nanny as we called her took to bed with an illness in her early 50's it was Pernicious Anaemia, she had to have an injection of something each week but to her she was now an invalid. She somehow then got herself looked after by folks like my mother. In truth there had been no need for all of this but she did like her bed and of course her television which she didn't listen too merely watched and made up her own scenario's about the story at any given time.
My mother also as she grew old was drawn back to bed at various times of the day, her carers would get her up and take her for some social event and gradually she would find her way back to bed where she seemed at her happiest. Mind you she was ninty four when she died, I think she probably wanted to withdraw from life much sooner than that. On retirement she was so devistated she started having a lie down ever day.
Somedays I know that feeling and although I genuinely do feel tired do my best to resist the urge to sink into the oblivion of sleep. Nowadays because we the older generation are living longer we need to sleep more to conserve our energy but I have to resist as long as I can and instead put up with all my innane illnesses like colds that never manifest, stomach bugs that don't appear and so on and headaches that don't turn out to be brain tumours. I will do my best to stay awake and active for as long as I can before I am struck down with some real condition that takes away my ability to stay out of the delights of my comfy, well sprung, bed.