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It's either a cold or instant death

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A) People who go to doctors

B) People who use WebMD

So I have to call myself out on this one. I have found that when something is wrong with me, my first instinct is to say to myself, “self, you can figure this one out on your own.” To me, and many people like me, this means going to webMD.

Usually, a trip to webMD starts out pleasantly. I am greeted by a nice, cool color scheme and a friendly looking semi-transparent man that I can click on to identify my ailments. No screaming amputees on the other side of these walls, just calm aqua and taupe. I click on the arm, click on the finger, tell it that it tingles a little bit and then webMD goes into its back room to think about it for a few seconds before giving me the prognosis.
Picture 1

And my top results?

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Aah, so that little tingle in my finger is just MS. How wonderful.

It’s unlikely that I will go and see a doctor at this point. I usually just go straight into prayer. And the good news is that it isn’t necessarily MS, it could just be a stroke or social anxiety disorder, so I don’t really need to worry that much.

After a few minutes of silent meditation, the tingling starts to subside, offering me the moment of clarity that I needed to realize that I was just sitting on my hand before the symptoms began. Did you know that sitting on your hand can give you MS?

In a funnier episode involving my wife, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a strange, irrational person who was convinced she had meningitis. There was indeed a stiff neck and a slight temperature. I asked this person who had taken my wife’s otherwise logical body what had given her that idea? Ignoring me, she fetched the laptop, entering her symptoms and spinning the computer around there on the bed, much like you see in a movie after there has been a “transfer of funds”: bacterial meningitis. Neighbors to this bad news were “whiplash” and a list of alternating conditions that kill / cripple you instantly (snakebite, sudden death syndrome, an E! marathon) and pretty innocuous problems like “you probably slept wrong, dumbass”. Of course, being the medical professionals we are, it is the serious ones that are most likely.

A cool towel or 2 later, the once 98.7 degree temperature had fallen down into a normal range (98.6) and the neck was starting to soften. Hyperbole hung its head and walked out of our bedroom, and by a strange miracle, my wife did not have meningitis that night.

webMD saved me that fateful evening. I would have almost certainly missed Conan otherwise.

- F I N -

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September 8, 2008 | Filed Under health, my life 

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