Thursday 3 April 2008

Should I Be Worried?

Today, I decided to put myself in the shoes of those patients who attend clinics 'informed' and 'greatly educated' by the cyberworld. I have never done this before and the very moment results came up for my search of sputum- yup, the stuff that has robbed so much of my time for the past week, I randomly picked a site- can't be bothered with reliability, credibility etc when I'm feeling so crappy. Doh! Expunging bucketfuls of gunk is hard work k, especially in the mornings when I'm fully loaded with it. Because I try to get rid as much as I can before I face the world as a relatively socially-acceptable person rather than a goo-splurting nose/mouth gun, the effort itself leaves me more tired than I was when clambering into bed the previous night.

Anyways, this website was so freaky in that it led me directly to the pneumonia page. And hypochondriacal me was joking all morning that this could be pneumonia. What are the odds right? Running down the checklist, I was becoming more convinced. Productive cough, low grade fever, chills, shortness of breath, nausea, musle and joint aches, whoah all also got leh... somemore common in winter and early spring *_*' Now I know how some people cannot be led to believe otherwise after they have compiled truckloads of info on what they think they've got. Sites like this are too darn convincing! All I saw was one page, and because it was compatible with my suspicion, I have automatically ranked it to be probable!

But of course, I'm not exactly an easy guinea pig to trick. The next move of trying to examine myself was pretty hilarious. Luckily my joints are pretty mobile. There was no way I could decipher my breath sounds although I could reach the appropriate auscultatory spots on my back. So ended up making silly noises and listening to their effects through the earpieces intead. A mixture between ET and Teletubbies hehe..

So after syok sendiri for quite some time (yeah, I admit I was procrastinating from doing more 'important' and 'useful' things), I headed off to makan! If there's one thing atypical about this is, I almost always have increased appetite and need to eat all the time when I'm sick hehe... No wonder those germs are breeding happily... I'm feeding them! Bloody free-loaders!

Ah yes, about having pneumonia, even if I DID have it, I won't go to the doctors unless I'm really ILL. And my definition of illness is quite different from the majority of the public. Can't help it... I am the sort who strongly believe that any common, non-severe conditions should be allowed to run its natural course. Still wondering why people consult doctors for common coughs and colds. You would think after so many occassions of having similar episodes, they'll realise they are self-limiting and can be managed conservatively. Hmm...Minimal doses of symptomatic relief every now and then like when my nose confuses itself for a running tap, is more than enough for me. So, none of those unnecessary antibiotics etc thank you very much. Those are for wimps! :P

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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