If you're not a hypochondriac before you read "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life and Death," you will be by the time you finish it. Who among us doesn't hiccup, eat vegetables, or experience the occasional twitch in an eyelid?
According to Weingarten, all of these seemingly harmless activities can lead to our imminent demise, accompanied by horrible pain and distressing body noises.
For instance, the only place where we probably can't get cancer is the lens of our eye.
Then there is this really gross tumor called a "teratoma" that can have teeth and hair. If you ever bit the head off of one of those ugly little Smurf® dolls when you were a kid (or as part of a fraternity initiation rite when you were still a kid but had the body of an adult), then picture it as wandering to a sensitive portion of your anatomy and MUTATING!!!
Whew!
Even the author had trouble finding anything humorous about cancer. He tried asking an oncologist, "So, Doctor, what's funny about cancer?"
"'Let's see,' [the oncologist] said. `Humor. OK, what is the difference between Sloan-Kettering and Shea Stadium?'
"Dunno, I said.
"'At Sloan-Kettering, the mets always win.'
"Ha ha, I said. What?
"'See, `mets' is an abbreviation for `metastasis,' which is a cancer that has spread systemically from one organ or system to another.'
"Ah.
"A desperate silence filled the room."
I suppose if I had to stagger off of this mortal coil, "beer potomania" wouldn't be such a bad way to go (compared to most of the other diseases in this book). People who drink in excess of eight quarts of beer per day can accumulate too much water in their blood (I guess the liver hogs all of the beer), which leads to confusion, lethargy, and death.
Moral: don't mix water with your beer.
The low point of "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life and Death" might be Chapter 20, "Oh, Crap (Diagnosis by the Process of Elimination)," wherein the author interviews a gastroenterologist who specializes in flatulence. This is the chapter I quoted most extensively to my friends.
Amazon.com won't let me quote the same passages for you, so buy this book and read it.
If you'd like to learn more about the author, Gene Weingarten, read Dave Barry's introduction before taking the plunge into Chapter 01, and figuring out which disease is going to take you down the drain.
