Yes, I'm a doctor. I have a WebMD degree.

Husband was sick yesterday.  Like stay in bed sick.  Well, really like got out of bed to announce he's sick and then climbed back into bed sick.  His bones ached, his head ached, he had a fever and was just "not well" as he likes to say.  I thought it was the flu. Told him to stay in bed and rest. For once he listened to me and he slept the day away.

Or so I thought.  Apparently at some point he woke up, got onto WebMD and diagnosed himself with fibromyalgia.  

Because the symptoms of fibromyalgia are aching, headache, depression, irritable bowels and anxiety and he has all those. And, while its a woman's disease mostly apparently the male population can get it too.  Like my dear husband seems to have.

It's good that he's diagnosed himself because treating the fibromyalgia will be hard to treat at the same time as the meningitis he apparently had last spring.  And the tetanus he had earlier that year.   And the Meniere’s disease, the diabetes, and the tennis elbow... 

Funny thing, with all these diseases he seems to have, he never goes to the doctor. 

Him: “I have tennis elbow.”

Me: “Go to the doctor.”

But he won’t. 

Actually, I exaggerate.  He will go sometimes. He saw a doctor for the heart attack he was having - we went straight to the ER for that one.  The heart attack that turned out to be indigestion from a Chipotle burrito eaten at lightning speed and arm pain from lifting his father's overstuffed suitcase.  

He also saw a doctor for the necrotizing fasciitis he’d diagnosed himself with six years ago.  The flesh eating bacteria thing that started on his hand and then moved to under his arm and then his chest.  He went to the doctor for that one but only AFTER I’d nagged for three weeks!  Pieces of his skin were sloughing off his hand, leaving a red seeping wound and yet, he would not go to the doctor.   When he finally went in, AFTER THE THING HAD MOVED TO THE THIRD PLACE ON HIS BODY, he told the doctor that I nagged him in. The doctor actually said to him, “Let me get this straight, if your wife hadn’t nagged you, you wouldn’t have come in?”  Yup! Then the doctor couldn’t figure out what it was, because it wasn't necrotizing fasciitis, and had to send it off for evaluation. An evaluation that husband refused to pay for because he feels that he went to the doctor for his expert opinion and if the doctor didn’t know what it was, the doctor should pay for the other guy’s opinion. The billing company felt differently about that one. 

So without the doctor to run interference and actually refute and debase his WebMD diagnosis, our conversations go a bit like this:

Me: "You can't have meningitis. If you did, you couldn't touch your chin to your chest."  

Him: "Well then I've had it all my life then.  I've never been able to touch my chin to my chest."

Me: “Go to the doctor.”

But he won’t.  Much like this fibromyalgia thing that’s got him bedridden.  If it is indeed fibromyalgia.  By the time he gets out of bed this morning, it’s sure to be something else.  

I, too, have a WebMD degree but I never exaggerate like husband.  It's obvious from my symptoms that I have rheumatoid arthritis and gout and sarcoidosis and Wernicke's syndrome...  Going to make husband move over. I'm getting back into bed.  I'm obviously dying.