My Terminal Disease Got Better

Hypochondria is a great way to while away the idle hours.  The tiniest sniffle, the faintest headache, the merest hint of a flesh eating bacteria chewing my face off; all these things evoke a deep and fascinated interest in me.  They send me scurrying to the internet for frantic attempts at self diagnosis.  Note that they don't actually send me scurrying to a doctor, I may be a hypochondriac but I'm not an idiot.  Browsing the net trying to decipher which particular terminal disease I'm suffering from today is a great way to spend the afternoon and not a whit less productive than anything else I'm likely to be doing.

There is the frantic search on dangerousquack.com for mention of my appropriately vague symptoms as I clutch myself to stop my, no doubt, liquifying organs from seeping through my skin.  Then there is the thrill of discovery as I get a match and confidently diagnose myself with Creutzfeld Jakob Disease despite the fact that I gave up cannibalism decades ago (the neighbours complained).  Once successfully diagnosed there is the added joy of nobly enduring my terminal disease without dropping a hint that my (barely discernable) symptoms might indicate something serious while spending my few remaining hours writing heartfelt farewell letters to my friends and family.

Evetually of course I have to accept that on balance I'm likely to live through the night and I must have contracted one of the milder strains of rabies.  At this point I regret not having made more of my symptons while I had them and thus garnerig a little sympathy before my utterly unexpected recovery.  Also of course I have to dash around madly gathering up all those embarrassing (and occasionally incriminating) farewell letters and burning them.  This has got so bad that my neighbours think I'm running a private crematorium in my living room.  Then I get the sniffles and the whole cycle starts again.

There is just one note of caution I would like to sound before encouraging you to take up hypochondria as a hobby.  From time to time your internet search will turn up a disease or condition which not only dovetails with your symptoms but actually sounds rather plausible.  When that happens it can be absolutely terrifying.