The trouble with being a hypochondriac these days is that antibiotics have cured all the good diseases.

I remember an Anton Chekhov play in which one of the characters says words to the effect that if there is a plethora of treatments for a disease, the disease must be incurable.

There are a number of treatments for PD and at the moment, parkinson's is incurable.

The effect of this is that I am becoming a hypochondriac. Yesterday, for example, while lying in bed, I kicked at the covers with my left leg. The result was a cramp in my left foot. I immediately thought I was progressing into stage two where both sides of my body will be affected. The cramp went away when I stood up and with a little rational thinking, I realized it was just one of those annoying cramps everybody gets. At least that is my position and I am sticking to it until I find out differently.

The trouble with the internet is that you can discover everything you ever wanted to know about PD and you await the arrival of every symptom you ever read; then you imagine you are sometimes experiencing a symptom when it is not there. For example, victims of PD eventually lose their balance and are prone to fall. When I fell on my walk, described in an earlier post, I thought falling was now on my PD agenda when in fact, I had stubbed my toe on a raised piece of an old sidewalk.

You know that old joke about the epitaph on the headstone of a hypochondriac NOW WILL YOU BELIEVE ME. I'd rather not be that corpse. Increased symptoms will eventually arrive but until then, I will remain optimistic and avoid finding those symptoms before they get here.


A Short History of Medicine

2000 B.C. - "Here, eat this root."
1000 B.C. - "That root is heathen, say this prayer."
1850 A.D. - "That prayer is superstition, drink this potion."
1940 A.D. - "That potion is snake oil, swallow this pill."
1985 A.D. - "That pill is ineffective, take this antibiotic."
2000 A.D. - "That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root."