the mad cow feeling

today i had this feeling again. the first time i had it was when i was 19 and i was in the army. omer (the x-factor) return from germany and said to me that we stop eating meet cause in europe everybody is obsessed about the mad cow. anyway, we probably already have it cause all the european countries sell israel their bad meat. then he started describing to me how our brains are going to melt and come out of our ears in 20 years or so. of course i believed him! i believe everybody, even roy ;) i remember that day very vividly, i felt as if i was told i have aids. i really felt that my end is close, and it's going to be one very unpleasant end...
so today i went to the orthopedist, the 4th in the past month. he spoke to me about the patello-femoral thing again. this time he was nice enough to really explain me what's going on and how can it be treated. obviously it cant really be treated. i can try the vitamines, the exercises, the birkiyot, but he didnt promiss any of them will help. surgical intervention is not an option of course. all he said is that i shouldnt let the pain stop me from doing things.
i really felt like i got crippled at 23. my knees hurt all the time now, and i do not intend to live on painkillers. i kinda feel sorry for myself. it really made me depressed. the only thing that somehow consoles me is a study we learned about on psychology, where they found out that in the long run ppl who won a lottery and ppl who have got a serious physical injury experienced the same amount of hapinness...