The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. and Death. (30 page)
Read The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. and Death. Online
Authors: Gene Weingarten
Anyway, Steven Mendelson loved classical music, especially horrible weepy gothic stuff by Sibelius, and he kept trying to get me to like it, too. He would play this interminable movement of violins and cellos and bassoons and kettledrumsânot a decent guitar lick to be foundâand then ask me what it made me feel like. The truth was, it made me feel like sticking my head in the toilet and flushing. But Steve was dying! He was reaching out to me in the most intimate of ways. So I didn't say what I really thought. I said the music, um, made me feel real peaceful-like, and, ah, it made me think of eternity and empty, unexplorable voids and the insignificance of our temporal being.
And he said, “Oh. Well, it makes
me
feel orange.”
I really, really liked Steve.
One of the last things Steve told me before he died was that he believed in an afterlife. He did not know what it would be: something uplifting, perhaps, or something judgmental and punishing, or something impossibly boring, like an endless game of miniature golf. But he was certain there was something, and he promised, if possible, to return from the dead and furnish me proof. I will know there is an afterlife, he said, if I wake up one morning to find my home tastefully decorated.
Me, I believe that when we die, we go to a place where everything is funny and divine retribution is the rule. Pompous people are compelled to dress like Donald Duck, with a shirt but no pants. The streets are festooned with renowned works of art by LeRoy Neiman and $300 designer shoes by Bruno Magli and ostentatious Rolex watches and Fabergé eggs, but dogs walk around peeing on them. This all lasts about an hour. Then a fat
guy with a clipboard shows up and starts taking names. I'm not sure what comes after that, but I think it is bad.
Unless you are a fairly old person, or prone to smoking crack while driving, there is a pretty good chance that I will be dead before you will. You may one day see my obit in the newspapers. It will be a modest obit, and because obit writers love irony, it will center on this book and how I gamely predicted my own death, joked about it, won the Nobel Prize for literature, etc. It will no doubt mention my final deathbed words, which I have been planning for years and fully intend to say. They are:
“I should have spent more time at the office.”
So. Let's say you are reading the obit and wondering, you know, hey, wait a minute, is there an afterlife? Is there any meaning to all of this? Can ol' Gene send me a signal?
What are youâstupid? I'll be
dead.
1
If Things Doctors Tell you were, say, foods, “Gene, something showed up in your tests” would be pralines-and-mackerel ice cream.
2
How much would it take for you to eat your own poop? Would $2,000 do the trick? My dentist told me of a patient with two false teeth who accidentally swallowed his bridge. His choice was to buy a new one for $2,000 or wait for the old one to emerge, clean it up as well as possible, and pop it back into his mouth. He chose option two.
3
This is not a home improvement book, but while I am on the subject, let me just say that it is not the wisest strategy to pay off a contractor before he completes the job. It is counterproductive. It is like roasting a chicken, seasoning it to perfection, and then attempting to swallow it whole.
4
Also, I attended Woodstock. My roommate and I slept in a tent constructed in the following manner: A tennis ball was placed in the center of a disposable plastic painter's drop cloth and cinched with a rubber band. This was hung from a tree. The corners of the drop cloth were fastened to the ground with forks. These were among the finest accommodations available at Woodstock.
5
Other ridiculously inappropriate names: “Fred” Astaire, “Gladys” Knight, “Humphrey” Bogart.
6
Food analogy,
continued:
“You will feel a little pressure now” is chicken soda.
7
Advice: Nonalcoholic beer is a concession best left unmade. Calling it beer is like calling an aphid a bald eagle.
8
Part of the reason my parents never suspected was that I attended the Bronx High School of Science, a nerd mecca. (Motto: “Our Eyeglasses Are as Thick as Sealy PosturepedicR Mattresses.”)
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Index
abdominal pain,
124
-33
diagnosis of,
126
-31
questions about,
131
-33
Adams, John,
32
-33
alcohol consumption,
190
flushed face after,
70
Hodgkin's disease and,
121
Alcoholics Anonymous,
112
signs of,
113
Alice in Wonderland syndrome,
93
alternative medicine,
28
-29
Alternative Medicine Digest,
193
Alvarez, W.C.,
32
Alzheimer's disease,
71
ameloblastoma,
75
American Diabetes Association,
51
American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology,
172
amyloidosis,
129
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease),
91
n
angina pectoris,
110
angioplasty,
109
ankylosing spondylitis,
166
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
(Gould and Pyle),
151
n
anterior uveitis,
165
-66
anthrax,
66
Apley rule,
127
apnea, obstructive sleep,
74
-75
apoplexy,
43
appendicitis,
29
-30,
127
,
130
,
154
fallopian tube vs.,
50
tapeworm vs.
79
n
armpit, pain in,
26
arrhenoblastoma,
132
n
Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis, The
(Sapira),
119
n
asparagus, urine smell affected by,
54
Au-Henkind test,
165
Babinski sign,
97
bacteria,
176
flesh-eating,
52
-53
bad breath,
72
-73
Barnard, Christiaan,
109
Bass, Henry E.,
169
Batista, Randas,
110
Behcet's syndrome,
166
Bernstein, Carl,
182