Drama Hoor

As expected by everyone sane and unexpected by me, the back pain has lessened and disappeared. It really surprises me that I do in fact have ulcerative colitis, and floating around somewhere, the colonoscopy* scans to prove it, because damn if I don't exhibit class A signs of hypochondria at times.

I think that, if you're a relatively healthy person (aside from the bags of Cheetoes and occasional gallon of tequila) a trip to the doctor, for slightly unnerving symptoms such as teeny blood droplets in stool, is something that you still expect to turn out well, or hopeful at least. You've received fairly good news all your life:

"It's only ear wax!"
"Wait, it's changing - you DON'T have strep throat."
"Sorry, kid, we can't keep you."

Doctors seem to talk more when there's nothing wrong with you. If they chat your ear off it's because they see what they expect to see. If they don't, they've actually got to pay attention. So, as a relatively healthy person, you're not expecting your doctor to poke around, stand mute except for instructions to the nurse, and to then give you the puzzled face he reserves for deciphering his own notes and say, "Hmm. Well, we'll have to do some tests." After that, you've become a patient.

Once you're a patient - okay, and this is where the YOU turns into ME - you begin to think that every little twinge is something big-bag-oh-my-god-deadly.

It's amazing how I can convince myself of this, even after lifting about forty boxes with my back and not with my knees.





*Just out of curiosity, why the hell doesn't Blogger recognize the word colonoscopy? Colonoscopy, colonoscopy, colonoscopy. It's more than ready to substitute endoscopy or spectroscopy, or pretty much any old scopy you can think of. Colonoscopies are not particularly new to the world of medicine, are they? Somewhere, I believe I saw an old drawing with a prone patient, a crowd of doctors and candle...