That cat really bit the shit out of me, sinking its fangs—I mean teeth—so deep into my hand it immediately swelled up and doubled in size. Some other time I’ll tell you the story about why Fluffy went demon child on me out of nowhere. Right after the cat attacked me I looked up cat bite on WebMD and diagnosed myself with sepsis—a big bad blood infection—which can lead to limb amputation or death.
“I’m going to die,” I declared.
Since I no longer live in constant suicidal ideation, I dragged my septic ass over to urgent care within a few hours of the attack. That’s when I got on the antibiotics and two days later I woke up with the mild stomach ache. When the stomach ache intensified from mild, to moderate, to short stabbing pains in my upper right abdomen, I looked up “pain in left upper abdomen” on WebMD. I clearly don’t know the difference between right and left. Or maybe those antibiotics doped me up so bad I forgot what’s left and what’s right. Either way, WebMD told me pain in the upper left abdomen could be serious business and potentially spell pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer.
Having now diagnosed myself with pancreatic cancer, I carted my dying ass off to the emergency room, certain it was so severe they’d need to admit me ASAP to do surgery.
Going to the ER instead of urgent care meant spending $220 on a copay versus $45. But, I knew the fee would be waived once I got admitted to the hospital. Knowing this, I also brought my phone charger so I could email my editors and tell them I’m one step away from dead. Obviously, my stories wouldn’t be turned in on time. Maybe never, in fact.
When the nurse took my vitals and asked me what was wrong, I said “I have pain in my upper left abdomen” while pointing to my upper right abdomen.
“That’s your right abdomen,” she said laughing.
Oh shit. I hadn’t paid the copay yet! I might be wasting $220 on nothing and the pain had already subsided greatly, so I wanted to abort mission.
“Oh, I can leave then,” I said.
“No, no, we need to check you out,” she said.
There went my $220 down the drain. When the smoking-hot doctor from somewhere in the Middle East came in checked me out, I tried to explain to him that I’d just goofed and mixed up my left side from my right, which is a really embarrassing thing to say to someone brilliant and drop-dead gorgeous. Especially when you’re haggard from rushing to the ER at 6 am and have no makeup on.
Unfortunately, he pointed out that I wasn’t pointing to my abdomen at all but rather my chest. Okay, so I don’t know the difference between right, left, or my abdomen from my chest. I had to weather a urine test, a chest x-ray and the drawing of multiple vials of blood from a vein on the top of my hand. The veins in my arms are as fine as hairs and they can never get the needle in. Thank god I never got into heroin. After all the test results came back the doc returned and said “Well, everything looks good. It was probably just a muscle spasm. Take care!”
Great.
Not only did I waste $220, but I wasted four hours of a morning which I had set aside to finish up some articles that were due that day. I guess the good news was I had proof that my blood wasn’t poisoned and I didn’t have sepsis, but still! Now my WebMD-induced hypochondria was disrupting my work life! Everyone tells me to get the hell off the site. My roommate knows I freak out constantly when I go on it, as does my boyfriend and all my friends. But I just cannot help myself! No matter what kind of ache or pain or inflammation plagues me, I have to go check it out.
In theory, you do that kind of research to avoid unnecessary trips to the doctor. Who wants to go to the fucking doctor? It’s a hassle even with insurance and sitting in an urgent care for hours is not my idea of a good time. Regardless, it ends up being way more expensive when you go on WebMD and convince yourself you have a terminal illness that will end your life in 12 hours if you don’t get immediate medical attention.
Over the years, with the help of WebMD, I have diagnosed myself with stomach cancer (stomach flu), liver failure (pain in my abdomen), lung cancer (wheezing from asthma), throat cancer (tonsillitis), cancer of the mouth (canker sores), torn eardrum (I think I had swimmer’s ear), fibromyalgia, cataracts and full-on tooth decay. Side note—I have a reoccurring nightmare that all of my teeth are falling, or have fallen, out of my mouth.
For me, WebMD does more harm than good. I look up all this stuff and invest time in reading, but at the end of every stupid blurb there’s a disclaimer that says I need to visit the doctor anyway. Even if I did have pain in my upper left abdomen and if it had lasted for maybe a week, then yes, perhaps I should have sought help. When I throw WebMD on top of my naturally neurotic nature, it’s a recipe for constant distress.
The only good thing I can say is that I’m glad I looked up cat bites. I don’t care how much you love the little fluff balls, if they really sink their teeth in deep, there’s practically a 100% chance it will get infected. Most people don’t get this, so they let it go, and then the infection can really do some tissue damage. And yes, if left untreated for more than a few days, you can get sepsis. But not after a couple of hours.
So what’s my solution? Am I going to stay off the WebMD?
I can’t make any promises. Still, since my vitals are always normal and my blood tests are always normal and my family has a very healthy history—outside of alcoholism and mental illness, of course—I’ll at least try to cut down. The best thing about my WebMD fixation is that it’s clear that today I do want to stay alive. Before I got sober, I would have welcomed sepsis as a get out of jail free card.