Friends and neighbors, I come before you today to say the Internet is not just an invaluable tool for researchers, not just a best friend to every lonely single guy in the world, not just a source of entertainment and community and wonderment and video game cheat codes. It's also the greatest boon for hypochondriacs ever created.
I know this, because I live with one.
Actually my wife Teresa is more of a hypochondriac hobbyist. She doesn't panic or stalk her doctor around the ninth green with meticulous charts of her bowel movements and the latest Reader's Digest list of trendy diseases. Instead, whenever she feels ill she looks up all the possible medical conditions she could conceivably be suffering from, no matter how obscure, and picks the absolute worst one imaginable. Only then can she relax, take a couple of Tylenol, and go back to bed, strangely content.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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We knew a guy who thought he had ankylosing spondylitis once. It turns out that he was drinking too much water.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Chris, you are a funny, funny man. You really need to be nationally syndicated--your stuff is easily good enough to make you a household name.
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The Colostomy Takedown brings up a lot of unsavory images, but I like it.
It would also make a good name for a band.
My editor read this and asked, "What's your wife going to say when she sees it?" I told him she read it yesterday morning before I submitted it. He said she must have a good sense of humor.
Why on earth would anyone marry someone who didn't have a good sense of humor?
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Brilliant. And this is coming from someone who once suffered chronic heart failure and the flesh-eating disease in the same evening.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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If I mentione friends or family in my column I generally let 'em read it first, especially if I'm making fun of them. Since the instant message conversation I used isn't too far off from ones I've actually had with her, she had no problems. She's the one that gave me the list of sites (she prefers wrongdiagnosis.com)
It's also not to say I don't take her seriously when something is really wrong. I took today off to go with her for her doctor's appointment because she had to have a biopsy taken and she hates having things sliced, cut, or poked on her actual person.
Which brings up a question I've had for some time. Whenever you go to a doctor you have to write down your medical history. Every time you go they take notes, presumably to add to your file. Yet every single time I've ever seen a doctor (or been with Teres to see hers) the doctor has had to ask about previous ailments or symptoms.
"Have you had problems with this before?"
"Yes, the last time I came here, when you asked me the same thing."
Happened again today. I realize they have a lot to do and a lot of patients to keep track of, but do the doctors ever read these things?
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OMG, I am so guilty of this! ONly it's not for me - it's for my kids, every time one of them has a tiny symptom I'm all over the internet trying to find out what horrible affliction they have. You're right - affliction is much cooler-sounding. Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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That was awesome! Thank you for making my day more amusing. Do you write one of these every week?
Posts: 486 | Registered: Feb 2005
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He does, and they're generally that funny. It's a pain getting to an archive of his articles on that site, unfortunately. I've managed to do so before, but today I'm not having any luck finding it for some reason.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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That's it. Now why was I not having any luck getting to that page? Like I said, I've gotten there before.
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