It’s Just a Flesh Wound

My views on illness and injuries are practically from the middle ages. I generally do not go to the doctor. I don’t believe in personally being sick (because it’s all mental, so mind over matter, right?). I’m very much part of the “walk it off” group.

However in other ways, I verge on acting like a hypochondriac. I actually do have some general knowledge of the body and the various systems that make it up. We had this totally awesome computer “game” when I was little where you had Adam and Eve and you could pick something like lymph nodes or the cardiovascular system and they had fun little videos explaining how it worked. I took all the bio courses offered in high school, and way back in the day had quite a few toy medical kits. I also had my dad’s old travel medical bag. All of a sudden my dolls and teddy bears were suffering horrible injuries and subject to all kinds of emergency surgeries. My mother was quite distraught when she realized a real scalpel had been hidden at the bottom of Dad’s bag. Oops.

This just means that I like to use my slight knowledge to diagnose myself. Now I know lots of people do this through internet research. I like to just make random guesses and then come up with what I feel are appropriate treatments (face hurts? Probably sinuses. Must drink tea and take baths. Excessive vomiting? Have some sort of mint stuff and make sure to keep fluids down. Headache? Drink something with a bit of caffeine). Thus why I am convinced I’m dyslexic, and also suspect I have some sort of clotting/circulation issues.

Back in college this drove my roommates insane as I was obsessed with attempting to staple a wound closed. They sometimes use staples instead of stitches for bad cuts in the ER. I mean sure, they have their own medical staples, but I felt like the idea could be applied with normal staples. When I worked at The Meadows we once stapled ourselves. The boys were trying to out man each other which led to Nate stapling his arm. Being of the if-you-can-do-it-I-can-do-it mind frame we then stapled me, and one of the other guys. Not a big deal. However the staple couldn’t really fully imbed in the skin, which made me curious to see if it would work better elsewhere and with an actual injury. Which is why whenever somebody in college had any sort of cut, I ran around imploring them to let me staple it.

I can’t say I’ve ever had any serious injuries where it would matter that I tend to ignore real medical treatment. The one time I broke my wrist we did actually go to a doctor (I was only 12, and rather hysterical for a whole lot of other reasons than just breaking my wrist). Otherwise I’ve made it through things like food poisoning, chemical burns, broken toes, and some sort of ankle injury.

Now that one might have actually not been that bad at first. It’s hard to say. We were heading to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. I was wearing very thin shoes, and stepped on a rock which then caused me to twist my ankle in some direction I don’t think it wanted to go. I breathed for a minute while I determined whether or not it was broken. Since I was driving, and it was my left ankle, I told everyone we could continue on. I figured it was a long drive and it could rest. Once we got there I ignored it. All was fine and dandy until we were back home at the end of the day and I decided to actually take a look at the stupid thing. I pretty much had half a baseball sticking out of my ankle. It took a month of ice and wrapping it until it seemed back to normal.

The Toe, several days after breaking.

When I broke my toes, I was yet again running around on them all day and laughing here and there while announcing “I think I broke my toes, guys.” I’m not sure anyone really believed me until we were getting mani-pedis and I declined as my entire pinky toe, part of my foot, and the next toe over were the most interesting shade of purple. But really, they’re toes. I taped them up later and wore flip flops for a month.

I just don’t find most external injuries that big of a deal. Generally you know what caused them, and you can see and fix them.

Illnesses should really be a whole other story. What I hate about illness though is it’s generally not as visible. You’re just going off what someone says they feel. Are they overreacting? Are they underplaying symptoms?? Who knows. I’m probably one of the worst offenders. I don’t mention anything that I don’t think is relevant. I only go to the doctor once I feel it’s necessary, which is how I managed to be sick for over a month in college with who knows what. A virus? Mono? A blood clot? No one’s really sure.

While when I talk to others I tend to push the “walk it off” philosophy, on the other hand I am very likely to tell them to go to the doctor whenever they have weird symptoms. You never really know what’s going on in your body. There’s so much they can fix now, as long as you catch it early. It’s much better to swallow your pride and talk to the doctor over ignoring something until it’s past being treatable.

Yeah this makes me a bit of a hypocrite, but I can live with that. To be fair, while I don’t actually go in to the doctor I do talk to doctors, which is practically the same thing as a regular consultation.

As you may or may not know, November, besides being NaNoWriMo (which I’m still not doing. One of these years it’ll happen by god), is also Movember. Men across the world are growing some very fun mustaches to earn awareness for men’s health issues. Since some men have a tendency to ignore preventive health measures (they treat it like asking for directions…) I think this is brilliant. While we can’t all grow amazing mustaches, we can all do our part to support them. If you have a spare dollar or two you can head over here to my friend Marc’s page and donate. Make sure to vote for the Hulk Hogan. The Cop scares me.

Keep in mind that all the things you can be doing at any point to promote your own health. Be somewhat active. Eat healthy-ish. Wear a seat belt. Everyone has their own version of being healthy (for instance, I only eat a half pound of bacon at one sitting rather than a full pound) but it’s important to just keep these ideas in mind. You don’t want to end up dying at The Heart Attack Grill (fascinating place I found in Vegas).