I have been a patient of Dr Google’s for a long time. I fondly recall the first time I consulted him. I was around 21 and typed in my numerous symptoms.
Dr Google sprayed a long and impressive list of illnesses at me, among which were typhoid, brain cancer, pneumonia, sleeping sickness, malaria, kidney failure, and HIV to name just a few.
I was impressed, my GP only ever explored one possibility for my not feeling my best whereas Google opened up a world wide web of illnesses that could quicken my demise, many of which I had never even heard.
Over the course of a rather sleepless night, I thought of the children I would never have, of how many people would show up at my funeral, of how I could enjoy my final days.
I consulted my real life GP in the morning. He listened to my chest and asked me if I smoked and I lied and said, “Oh, only a little bit”, where the truth was I sometimes happily puffed through as many as 60 on a good day.
“You have bronchitis,” he said, “you’d want to give up those cigarettes, you’re not a candidate for smoking.”
He prescribed some antibiotics and thankfully I survived until this present day so that I could, dear reader, relate this story to you.
One would think my experience with Dr Google would have taught me a lesson, but no. I like the way one can type a half a dozen symptoms into it and get maybe a 1,000 possible diagnoses. After all, who doesn’t like to have options?
😁
