Web MD, and other medical-diagnostic internet websites, are great resources for those of us who can handle it, but they must be absolute wonderlands of neurosis and paranoia for hypochondriacs! Even I, your humble author, with my Gibraltar-like stability, sometimes fall victim to its siren’s song and hypnotic spell of fake-disease-itis. Oh, what am I talking about? I fall for it all the time!
The problem with a resource like Web MD is that every imaginable symptom you can get of anything is also listed as a possible early stage sign for some type of cancer. So people like me might see that listed and say: “Oh my God! I’ve got cancer!” And then I go to my doctor, and he says: “Um, it’s not cancer. I don’t know why you thought it might be cancer, but it isn’t.” So I say: “Are you sure? It said this might be…” And my doctor says: “It said? What is it? Oh, wait; you haven’t been looking stuff up on the internet, have you?” And so I say, ashamedly: “Yes.” And he says: “Don’t do that. I should have known! Everybody always thinks they have cancer whenever they read stuff on the internet! They should ban that stuff for people like you.”
But he’s just mad that I’m better at diagnosing myself than he is, man! And someday, when I really do have cancer, I can finally say: “Ha! I told you so all along!” But I hope I don’t get cancer, even if I would get to be smug about it.
In any case, I wonder how many other people think they have horrible, terminal diseases thanks to Web MD? Who else has ever been scared and stressed out of their wits thanks to those “resources”? (Don’t worry: I won’t tell anyone!) They should totally be sued for our own malpractice when we make ourselves think we’ve got those diseases from reading their website! The least they should have to pay is the “pain and suffering” stuff! I mean, am I right? So let’s start a class-action lawsuit! Who’s with me?
