Happy Thanksgiving

I would not make a good diagnostician, in part because I have difficulty seeing the forest for the trees. I would make an unconvincing hypochondriac for this very reason, since I can't connect the dots: I cannot go from red spot to pustule to MRSA to imminent death. 1 + 1 does not equal 3 for me, but neither does it equal 2. In fact, 1 never comes near the other 1, and is a completely different digit altogether, maybe even a VI or an omega. If I see a red dot on my skin, it's a miracle if I manage to get beyond, "Oh, red dot," to "oh, pimple." Chances are high that my thought process will stop at, "Red dot," and then move on to some completely unrelated thought based on whatever is shiniest in the vicinity. "Oh, chipmunk," say, or "hm, microwave." As a result, I do not speculate, and I do not come to reasonable conclusions, and especially I do not correlate. Most of all, I do not worry.

I'm the kind of patient that doctors hate, the "by the way" patient, who comes in with an issue and is seen for that issue, and then adds as the doctor is heading out the door: "By the way, there's this other symptom, it probably isn't important, but--" Combined with symptom 1, symptom 2 leads to a totally different diagnosis than 1 by itself, a diagnosis that involves a future of amputations, organ transplants and premature balding -- but more importantly, requires that the doctor close the door, come back to his patient, and start all over again from scratch. I do not have colds. I have sneezing, I have sniffling, I have a fever, and I have a headache, and only the repetition of that combination of symptoms repeatedly over the course of many years has drilled it into my head that 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4. Now I recognize that combination as "seasonal cold," and will diagnose it confidently as such.

Which leads me to another condition that I have never been able to identify until now, mostly because I never connected the dots. The Guy had it a few months ago. "What is it?" I asked him, apropos the condition. "I've heard of it before, but what is it really?"

"A vein swells," the Guy said.

"And?"

"And," he said. "There's itching and burning, and it hurts to--" He went on to explain in detail. Like romance, the TMI of physical ailments is one of the first casualties of a long-term relationship.

"Oh," I said, and sympathized without really comprehending.

"You've never had it before?"

"No."

"You will eventually," he said darkly. I could have told him that I have had each symptom that he'd described, sometimes all together at the same time, and he could have said well, in that case you had what I have you idiot, ha ha -- but I did not and he did not so we both remained blissfully ignorant.

Well, not blissfully. I went out and got him some cooling gel.

This brings me to the things that I am thankful for this season. A few weeks ago, in acute discomfort, I remembered the conversation I had with the Guy and -- unusually for me -- actually thought about it a little more. In a rare show of medical arithmetic, I added up the numbers and got 4.

Oh, I thought. Oh.

So my list of things I am grateful for this year. In no particular order....

1. My son, the moon-faced assassin of joy.
   
2. Caffeine.
   
3. My husband.
   
4. Friends and family.
   
5. My job and coworkers.
   
6. Health insurance.
   
7. The ability to be content.
   
8. A sense of humor.
   
9. Flannel.
   
10. Preparation H.