Why reading and writing is the road to happiness...


This blog started years ago as a place to muse on the life projects keeping me entertained. It is no surprise then that it has morphed into a blog about my reading as that has been my lifelong project. Here I review lots of different types of books, with an added focus on Australian women writers. Hope you enjoy - feel free to contribute to the conversation!

Tuesday 22 May 2012

Along Came A Spider...

I write this post happy in the knowledge that I woke up this morning and will live to see another beautiful Autumn day. Why? Because yesterday I CONSULTED GOOGLE DOCTOR AND PREPARED TO DIE! And prepared to die a slow and painful death according to the no doubt highly accurate information I sourced. Last month there was a repeated message in the media by the Australian Medical Association warning punters NOT to source their medical information off the net, but that oft advertised warning will not deter seasoned hypochondiacs like myself! Don't relieve us of our self inflicted Internet panic attacks - its what we live for, thank you. I love it when I regale my very cynical doctor with stories from my Google research about the tape worm I may or may not have picked up in Fiji, and how I had most certainly contracted Ross River Fever in Townsville. He doesn't even check me. He actually tells me to shut up and just deals with the real issue at hand - ie writing out my script for my Pill repeat. He's the best doctor a hypochondriac can have...that's why I stay with him.
So that being the case I refrained from ringing him with this story -
Yesterday I was folding the washing from the laundry basket and felt a sharp sting on my bare leg. I yelped in pain - it was seriously painful! - and looked down to see a vicious looking spider taking a hunk out of my calf. I yelled out an expletive - of course, true to form - and whipped it off with the back of my hand, noting it was white and furry. Immediately, my life flashed before my eyes and I bid adieu to my daughter happily playing on the bed - I had been struck by the lethal white tailed spider and I had hours to live. This was no hypochondria for once - I had the living proof of the angry looking spider eyeballing me from the carpet, and two bloodied fang marks within a rising welt on my stinging calf. This was the real deal. So what did I do? Consulted Google of course, which provided my with a very handy Spider Identification Chart. My daughter was now bored and grizzling and I attempted to appease her with 'Sshhh, Mummy is dying from venom, she needs to find the anti venom on the Internet'. She was not appeased. A ring to the old boy resulted in even less sympathy - he told me to call in half an hour if I had gone into a fit. Helpful.
The chart offered two conclusions - it was either the comon Garden orb or the lethal White Tail. Hhmm. The White Tail is apparently known to hide in laundry and clothes or towels lying on the floor. Quelle horror. It must have been a White Tail! I noted the sting as I put weight on my leg, and started to mentally locate the box where I kept all my death benefits paperwork and Will. But like any real hypochondriac, I didn't ring any hotline, or go to Emergency (uggh, there is no worse horror than the Public Hospital Emergency waiting room). I just went about my evening, making dinner, and periodically checking the receding red welt on my leg.
And just as life is rarely like the movies, this domestic drama gradually fizzled - no vomitting, no fainting, no dying. It was just the common Garden orb - I'll live to see another day.

To prove my true character as a hypochondriac, here was my going away present from a job a few years back - great reference tool....


I've used it often.

Anyone else self diagnosed something awesome?

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