I Blame Hugh

Hugh Laurie that is. Once half of “A little bit of Fry and Laurie”, now, somewhat improbably, a star of the “Hit US TV Series”, House.

This, I had managed to avoid on the grounds that (a) it was about yucky medical things and (b) I’d sit there waiting for him to say “Gosh, Jeeves”. Well due to a scheduling change that places it after Numb3rs I found myself watching the first episode of Series 3. And I realised what a wonderful resource it was for hypochondriacs. All sorts of terrible ailments were used to explain the symptoms of his patients, I imagine that on mornings following broadcast of an episode, doctors open their surgery doors with heavy hearts as a long line of improbably sick people slink in.

Me? Every headache is a tumor distending my skull, about to leap out like some alien xenomorph. Every chest pain is a heart about to explode through my ribs, like some alien xenomorph, every stomach ache is my colon about to explode out of my belly like some alien xenomorph. And I don’t consider myself that much of a hypochondriac. Unlike a couple of my friends. Big Strapping lads in their ’30’s, but every time I see them they are popping a pill for this or that, worrying about a niggle here, a twinge there. So what must it do to vulnerable people? Maybe they ought to put a disclaimer on screen. “All the symptoms portrayed in this program are fictitious, and bear no resemblance to any real illnesses, fatal or not.”

~ by @mmonyte on July 15, 2008.