Yesterday at about 10 a.m., I started not feeling well. It came on quickly. When I got to work, I was fine. I was having a good healthy morning, and then--BLAM--I felt blah, was coughing and had what I like to describe as a "foggy head".
At about this time, I was searching online and saw yet another story about the Mumps epidemic here in Illinois. So, I found a list of syptoms for Mumps. Fever? "Not sure. No thermometer." Headache? "Not really...oh wait... now that you mention it...." Then I started feeling my salivary glands. Granted, I am not really sure where those are, but I thought I felt some swelling in my neck. By 11, I was fairly convinced I had Mumps.
When I mentioned to my boss that I wasn't feeling well, he said, "Well, did you go take something?" This question seems logical. Sure, if you are not feeling well, then go take cough medicine, or aspirin, or sinus decongestant. But not me. Instead of medicating, the first thing I do when I feel ill is to begin diagnosing and speculating about my illness. Some may call this being a hypochondriac. I call it being proactive about my health.
My pursuit of self-diagnosis is aided by those home self-care books that list symptoms to help you figure out what you may have and when you should see a doctor. About a month ago, I had a burning sensation on the top of my scalp. I got out my handy book and read a lot about cancer and other skin diseases. It turns out that I just wasn't using a good shampoo.
During the burning scalp incident, I called my Mom and told her that I had my home self-care book out. I remember she just said, "Oh no." My sister Michelle has threatened to remove it from my house. But I just can't help it. Seeing all those symtoms and scary illnesses in black and white gets me quite afraid. I assume the worst. It's kinda like if you think about bugs really hard, you start "feeling" one crawling up your leg. Well for me it, I read about tubercolosis and spastic colon and start thinking, "Oh no, I kinda feel that..."
This leads me to kind of overexaggerate my illnesses. I've claimed to have mono (multiple times), malaria, scarlet fever, dysentery, and diptheria. My sister likes to say that I've had every disease on the Oregon Trail. And yes, maybe the hours upon hours spent on that game has colored my self-diagnosis a bit. But that makes my illnesses no less real.
My family counters this claim by saying that if I have had all of these diseases, I wouldn't still be around. I say that I just have a really good immune system. I can overcome mono with a good night's sleep and bounce back from malaria in a couple hours. A week tops. Let's see those Oregon Trail animated charaters do that.
Update: For a full chronicle of my medical history, please see the comments page for a wonderful post from RJCraig.
4 comments:
Having once employed the author of this blog, I can confirm that the man's hypochondria is long-standing. The following is a list of ailments he complained about in 1999.
* Nausea and dizziness (3/7 approx 2:30)
* Hurt toe - Run over by chair, weird bump (3/23 2:49 p.m.)
*Headache, ankles ache (3/27 1:51 p.m.)
* “My eyeballs itch.”...later spreads to entire body (3/29 3:05 p.m.)
* Suddenly lost hearing in right ear (4/5 11:46 a.m.)
* Nose bleed (4/7 2:10 p.m.)
* A general malaise, “mushy” head (4/10)
* Face feels red, warm (5/16 3:54 p.m.)
* Chest pains...but only in heart (5/30 12:41 p.m.)
* Intense ringing in ears...deafness except for buzzing (6/27 10:30 a.m.)
* Right eye socket hurts upon blinking: “...a shooting kind of numb pain.”
* Sudden, crippling pain in kneecap (8/9 afternoon)
* Same as 5/30 but on other side (9/7 10:49 a.m.)
* Seems like left temple is generating “a lot of heat.” (11/1 11:10 a.m.)
* A sharp poking right in the kneecap. (11/14 4 p.m.)
* Bad shock and pain in one tooth from a piece of cheese (11/29 11:49 a.m.) The cheese “chilled my tooth to a painful point...To the point where there was a shock.” Cheese may have created "electricity."
* Throbbing pain in kneecap (12/4 2 p.m.)
* Hip just went out (3/8 2:35 p.m.)
* Legs very weak; gets exhausted just thinking about standing (4/20 10:02 a.m.)
I loved playing Oregon Trail! Possibly because I won every time. That's right- I'm an Oregon Trail master.
it's not a disease if you're a pansy. also, re: doublem's post, i think James Bond had reached a similar Burnsian equilibrium with all of the STDs he'd gotten over the years, this coming from no less authoritative source than SNL.
I'm not a pansy. I am just that afflicted.
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