SymptomChecker.com is nice, plug in all the Things That Are Wrong, and hit "submit." Then it spits back some possible ailments: infection, lupus, arthritis.
I'm not worried, just curious. Mainly, I just think I'm getting older and the assorted malfunctioning bits and pieces are to be expected.
Some days, though, I just want to wander through the medical literature, system by system, and get a look at the big picture. I study "Your Brain and Nervous System," the spine, each vertebrae, the way it should look if hand drawn and perfect. An x-ray of the damage. I assume mine is somewhere in between the two. I read, "Your brain is composed of approximately 100 billion neurons...." I can't imagine 100 billion of anything and I don't know what neurons look like, but I'm using several of them to think about the fact that I can't really know them.
"Your Ears, Nose and Throat" shows all the empty spaces in my head, the tiny bones in my ears, my vocal cords. It has instructions for "Proper Use of Your Voice" that suggests I avoid "excessively loud or raucous talking," which is easy to do most days, but I do enjoy raucous talking when allowed.
I study the lists of diseases and syndromes, mainly for their words: cystinuria, Dupuytren's contracture, vasculitis, agnogenic myeloid metaplasia. Impossible to tell which is dangerous and which is merely an annoyance, which is easily correctable and which has a low survival rate.
When we met with Rainer's doctors in the NICU before we knew it was fatal, one of them commented that when he goes home at night and his kids are in bed, he still goes into check on them. They are 10 and 13, but he still has to make sure they are breathing. He sits on the edge of their bed in the dark and just needs to make sure. Sometimes they are so quiet, he wants to wake them up. He knows all the possibilities. All of them.
We calculate the odds. We study the symptoms. Just to be ready. Just in case.
No comments:
Post a Comment