I've been sick the last couple of days. Sick enough to actually take off from work on Friday. I should probably take off Monday, too, but I'm probably not going to. My brother Bryan has been sick lately as well, and this weekend we had fun diagnosing ourselves with WebMD's symptom checker.
The problem with this thing is that it can take your vague symptoms and turn them into serious illnesses. For example, my symptoms probably mean I have a touch of the flu, which I am not happy about since I had my flu shot in November and I was almost in the clear for flu season. However, according to WebMD, I might have Legionnaire's disease. Or possibly West Nile Virus. Okay. Right.
Bryan (who will turn 20 at the end of this month, by the way) became obsessed with the fact that "foul smelling stools" was a symptom you could look up. He decided that he himself had foul smelling stools, and decided to see what he could have. Included on the list of things he could be suffering from were Crohn's disease or cystic fibrosis. Well there you go, people. If you have foul smelling poo, don't just light a match and spray some Lysol. Check yourself for cystic fibrosis.
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I hate that the WebMD symptom checker always presumes the worst-case scenario because I think it could actually be something useful to avoid unnecessary doctor's trips. But not if my sore wrist could be indicative of a compound fracture. Because I wouldn't notice A BONE STICKING THROUGH MY SKIN, no.
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