Another Thing to Fret About: Black Death

That plague infected monkey in Denver got me to wondering how you would know if you had the Black Death instead of the flu or that bug that’s been going around the office. So I looked up the symptoms, and the main initial ones are swollen and sore glands. Now every time I get a swollen gland, I’m going to worry about whether I have bubonic plague. Then again, I am descended from people who didn’t die of the plague the last several times it raged through Europe, so I can be somewhat optimistic that I could survive it.

I never should have looked up the symptoms. I almost always begin to imagine that I have some of the symptoms of any disease I read about. That made it especially hard for me to work at the VA where I had to review vets’ medical records. At one point, I was convinced I had PTSD except that I couldn’t pinpoint a sufficiently traumatic event to pin it on. The time I almost stepped on a snake probably wasn’t enough to trigger the disorder.

I know I’m a little nuts, but I am also justified. A number of my family members died or almost died because serious illnesses were misdiagnosed as minor ailments. My grandfather died at 51 years of age from cancer that had been treated as lower back strain. My brother had lymphoma that went untreated for way too long because he was diagnosed as having a simple musculoskeletal problem with his hip. He’s lucky to be alive. That’s just a couple of examples. The quality of medical care in my hometown is not too good, I’ll admit, but these were pretty big mistakes even for small town doctors. My dad went way too long without bypass surgery because his doctor couldn’t figure how why he was having so many heart attacks!

I don’t take it for granted that my knee pain is due to a mechanical injury. I want to make sure I don’t have knee cancer. My tombstone will read: “I told you I was sick!”