Are You A Cyberchondriac Too?

Hantavirus. Flesh-eating disease. Rabies.

Name an incredibly rare, swiftly fatal disease, and I?ve had it—at least in my head, between 1 and 4 a.m., when even the urgent care center that could possibly reassure me that I didn?t was closed.

I?ve never had Ebola, but that?s only because it?s hard to imagine you may be slightly hemorrhaging from your eyeballs. Either you are or you aren?t, which makes Ebola one of my favorite diseases. Instead, I have a particular fondness for fatal diseases that share almost every symptom with a bad day at work:

• Exhaustion


• Mental confusion


• Inability to tolerate bright lights

I suspect I?m not the only one. Here?s my quick quiz to see if you too are a cyberchondriac:

1. When you wake up with a crick in your neck, you google meningitis.


2. You?ve been on drug-resistant TB alert ever since that dumb guy got on the plane.


3. You knew when Sanjay Gupta visited that swine flu?infested Mexican hospital he'd come back with it. You had the sudden urge to scream—horror-movie-style—at the TV: Nooooo, Sanjay! Don?t. Go. Into. The. Stairwell!

Some (like, say, my husband, or that Oxford hotline nurse who took my hantavirus-scare call after my cat dropped a mouse on my face) would say I?m crazy. I think I?m a proactive patient. Is anyone with me?