If it's not one thing, it's your mother.

Diagnose me, Internet: for the past three days I have had a blinding headache, my entire body aches, I am mildly queasy, and if I walk more than a few blocks I feel as if I should just lie down in the gutter forever. My guesses are hanta virus, or imminent death. Any other ideas?

Speaking of hypochondria, my husband spent last weekend obsessing over a mole that had suddenly sprouted on his wrist. The mole was all the things they say moles should never be: irregularly shaped, dark, raised, shiny, bumpy, mole-y. We enjoyed 48 hours of Scott peering at his wrist and whispering “Oh god oh god oh god.” Of looking at pictures of moles online and predicting the grim outcome of the biopsy and why didn’t he have life insurance and etc. So this week he went to the dermatologist, who diagnosed him with…

… a scab.

Yes. A scab. The mole that had suddenly appeared was a CUT that suddenly SCABBED. And oh, how I laughed. I laughed and laughed. There may have been some pointing. I’m not a nice person. I am now calling him Scabbers.

(My husband agreed to let me share this story on one condition: that I mention how, by the end of the weekend, he told me he thought the Cancerous Mole was getting smaller, and I told him that he was insane, that he was seeing things because he was so afraid of going to the doctor. So. But still. A scab! Laugh! Laugh and point!)

Speaking of words that begin with “scab,” my son’s itchiness has also been diagnosed. The kid has scabies. It took three doctors to figure this out. As I had joked, he was in fact being eaten alive by microscopic vermin. For MONTHS. One application of scabicidal ointment later, my son’s skin is smooth and clear. I shared this news with my mother, who shouted, “He has SCABBIES? I don’t understand! How did he get SCABBIES?” and I'd like to say that I told her he caught them from his father, but I wasn't clever enough, probably because of the parasite that’s eating my brain.

Comments

[Em]

Hee. A scab. I like Scabbers, that's a good name. My good friend recently had shingles, so then her name was Shingles for awhile. Not very creative, but funny!

It sounds like you have some kind of virus. But other than that, I don't really know. I suck!

[sharbean]

Internet diagnosis...hmmm! Here's my 2 cents: Perhaps it's a bladder infection. I've had a few that had me thinking I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or some other remote disease -- with no classic symptoms. But then again, I also felt that way when I was taking malaria meds. Believe me -- malaria meds are not pretty.

[Weeze]

Nah, everyone in New York has whatever this is right now. I have it, yes I do. Mine's lasted about three days and it's fading.

(I live in Prospect Heights, and I don't know you and you don't know me, but one day I'll recognize you on 7th Avenue and scare the hell out of you by saying hello.)

[Dr. Kennedy]

It's probably either galloping MS or some sort of on-and-off chronic fatigue syndrome. I'm pretty sure.

[Marivic]

Bird flu. We're all doomed.

[ChickenFlicken]

Oh, how you make me laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh. So funny.

Could you please post maybe five or six times a day? Please? Because you really, really make me laugh.

Thanks!

[jilbur]

ooooohhhh scabies. I am so proud of you. I had a babysitter quit me once because, while examining an odd rash on the Jellybean (later diagnosed as—wait for it ... bug bites!), I knitted my brow and said, 'hmmmm, I don't think it looks like scabies ...' And so the babysitter—a fourth grade public school teacher—quit on the spot saying that if I even remotely suspected that my child could have the dreaded filthy scabies, she didn't want to be in my home which, she assured me, she had already judged to be unhygienic. The ignorant little whore.

so all I'm sayin'? when you visit, bring your own Lysol. My household is a cloaca.

[Elsa]

Hmm, blinding headache, severe body aches, queasiness, and the impulse to lie down in the gutter forever... Well, I sometimes get that cluster of symptoms after talking to my mother. Could that be it?

[Megan]

I had symptoms like that once, for like months. They pretty much went away after the baby was born.

[karyn]

I'm glad to hear that Henry's skin is now looking and feeling better! Poor little guy.

Ha ha! A scab! I have become quite vigilant in looking at my husband's multitude of moles. He has already had a couple lopped off. The doctor must think we're crazy, but hey, I kinda want to keep him around for a few more years, so i say better safe than sorry.

[emma]

I so enjoyed your entry, i left the blogging world a while back, and now, thanks to this entry, I just wanna read more...

Aren't husbands children really.... lol

[Jane]

So nice to hear that poor little Henry is cured.I once stood outside the school nurse's room while my best friend showed her the rash she thought was German measles, and laughed helplessly and tactlessly on hearing the diagnosis of flea bites.

[jill in nc]

anemic...or pregnant...or maybe Henry's scabies have infested your brain? Hope you feel better, whatever it is.

[purplejoolz]

My sister-in-law noticed some tiny spots on the neck and chest of her first born, when he was very young. Turned out she'd dropped some chocolate on him while she was eating and it had melted on his hot little body!

[Fiona]

You have influenza.

[connor]

In fairness to the two doctors who saw your son first, scabies is known as the "great impersonator".I really think that those internet sites that provide diagnosis should come with a prescription for valium (at least enough to take until you can get into the doctor), or at least a disclaimer, "this site may cause you to want to drink heavily"

[not-that-Andrea]

Hmmm. Your symptoms sound much like the plague. I know because I thought I had the plague some years back. A fever and a dark spot under my chin. Went to my doctor and he politely pointed out that the dark spot was a bruise and the fever was because I took my temperature right after drinking a hot cup of coffee. Ahem. So I'm fine now and plague-free.

[rothbeastie]

I just wanted to share a story with you. My boyfriend and I were cleaning out my parent's garage and apparently field mice had made nests in there because we kept finding little stores of bird seed and tiny dry poop thingies. I swept it up and I suppose I touched it some so my boyfriend was all, "Wash your hands, you'll get hanta!" and I was all, "I'm not a hanta, I'm a gatheruh!" Which I thought was really funny, but he didn't laugh. I'm still bitter about that.

Feel better.

[emjaybee]

Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything, but that's (headache, fatigue) pretty much how pregnancy is making me feel. But presumably you already ruled that out. Clearly, it is the plague.

[alice]

Attention commenters! I'm not pregnant! So don't get my parents all excited with your bun-in-the-oven hypotheses. Other than that, keep diagnosing. This "plague" is sounding promising...

[Burfica]

I can't get over the pointing and laughing. I thought I was the only one that enjoyed every second my husband prooves he's more of a dork than the average dork type person. Have you thought of vertigo??? Or mad cow dissease, bird flue, hanta, black plague.

OOoOo I got it I know. duh!!! You got a raging case of the massivly uncurable cooties. hehehehehe

[sac]

It's bloginosis. Catch it!

[ezugo]

Hmmmm, duno what diagnoses to give ya but I do have a remedy to cure your ills (whatever they maybe): Take two pints of Guinness Draft and all will be well. jk

That usually solves mine but I hope you get better.

[Sarcastic Journalist]

have you tried the harvard symptom checker?? i hope the answer is "its not a tum-ah."

and the scab/mole? my hubs has a mole on his head just like it and it is FREAKING ME OUT.

[Nobody]

It's Ebola. You're going to be famous.