Thursday, April 17, 2008

You Think You're Sick?

(Reprint permission is often available—all you need to do is ask! But you do need to ask. For permissions, write to me at ). 

I’m glad spring is finally here, because duringthe chilly winter months, I was constantly catching colds and viruses. At least, I’m pretty sure I was. Frankly, why bother getting the occasional run-of-the-mill runny nose when you could, with a little practice, elevate the mundane and microbial illness to something much higher, even an art form?

I began to realize the potential for attention-getting hypochondria long ago, when I worked as a writer for a research university. Although I was (and am) Jewish, I wasn’t smart enough to become a doctor. However, I was smart enough (barely) to interview physicians and other scientists, learn about diseases they were studying in their labs, and then scare the living daylights out of the public by writing about these rare, oddball plagues. Each day I discovered another dreaded disease, its symptoms and treatments - when there were any. 

This job was more dangerous than working in a coal mine. After all, if you got out of the coal mine alive at the end of the day, you were safe. But in this job, the risks followed me home. I lay awake at night fearing that the extra hair on my brush was not just a normal follicle shedding, but a case of alopecia areata, a disorder that causes hair to suddenly fall out in giant clumps for no reason. Worries that my blurry vision didn’t just hint that it was time to get my glasses checked, but that I had the dreaded Alstrom-Halgren Syndrome, which could lead to my early demise, gave me nightmares.

Sure, these were rare diseases, but so what? Somebody was going to get them—why not me? For the next year, I carefully examined my hairbrush each morning and evening, looking for telltale signs that I was losing my tresses. I had my eyes checked more often than I got haircuts. You just couldn’t be too careful.

I tried to remain calm at work. But one day, while writing about a form of liver tumor that strikes as many as one in 15 million people, but is usually harmless, my worry-ometer went haywire. After all, my great-uncle had something wrong with his liver. Or maybe it was liver spots. Or maybe he hated my grandmother’s chopped liver. I couldn’t really remember, but liver trouble obviously ran in the family. Unfortunately, my doctor refused to order a CT scan based only on my own wild presentiment of doom. This refusal to authorize the scan naturally added another layer of affliction to my already overworked imagination.

As my portfolio of health care writing grew, so did my arsenal of inner torments. Soon, my desk held not only a stapler, pens and pencils, but also a thermometer, blood pressure cuff, and glucose monitor. Sure, I felt great and went to the gym three times a week, but what if I really had an undiagnosed case of Wandering Spleen, Yellow Nail Syndrome, or any of hundreds of other diseases lurking in the populace with the words “disorder” or “deficiency” in their names?

When I did catch a cold or flu, I took plenty of days off to ensure that my skin wasn’t turning blotchy and my head growing proportionately too big for my body (a sure sign of a congenital disorder whose name had about 43 syllables, most of them consonants). I clutched my box of facial tissues like an alcoholic clenches a bottle of Jim Beam. I compulsively checked for changes in my temperature, wondering if I was also coming down with obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

One evening after work, I headed to the medical library on campus, armed with a typed list of all my current symptoms. After consulting a 50-pound medical diagnostic manual that caused my sciatica to flare up just from lifting it, I discovered that I had a textbook case of Congenital ‘Fraidy Cat Syndrome. I knew it: my expanding medical knowledge was slowly killing me.

Proof that I had a bona fide disorder immediately caused my blood pressure to fall to normal levels. (I checked it immediately, never leaving home without my trusty blood pressure cuff.) Yet I still wasn’t sure whether to keep my job. True, it was proving fatal, but at least the health benefits were great, and I could probably sell my university parking permit on eBay for big bucks. 

Six months later, surprised to find myself alive and still working out at the gym, I figured I better quit while the going was good. Soon I landed another job for a private research company, specializing in possible cures for hypochondria and other psychosomatic illnesses. Not only did they like my writing samples, but when they saw my glucose monitor and blood pressure cuff, they knew I’d fit right in. 

(This article originally appeared in slightly different form on http://www.aish.com.)

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