The Internet is a dangerous place. I think it gave me a brain tumor. First, it started with phantom odors, a whiff of something burning when nothing was. Then came the headaches and the increasing inability to stop reading about who was claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s five-month-old daughter, Dannie Lynn Hope Smith Stern Berkhead von Anhalt. Reading the stories in their entirety took hours, and as the screen blurred, my head throbbed, and I began thinking that Wilt Chamberlain was Dannie’s father. I knew something was wrong.
A quick check of WebMD.com and Internet message boards pointed to a tumor. Phantosmia? Check. Headache? Check. Hallucinations about Chamberlain, which included a rousing musical number involving Bombaataa, the character he played in “Conan the Destroyer,” and Mugsy Bogues, the NBA’s legendary wee man? Check. Writing a column that doesn’t have a point? Well, no, thankfully.
The message boards offered little reprieve. Some netizens speculated that the symptoms were indicative of numerous other conditions, including mad cow disease, kleptomania and chronic flatulence, which I immediately ruled out because my hearing has been fine. One common hypothesis is hypochondria, which makes sense because it has been really cold this winter, and I often find myself shivering uncontrollably, especially when I go outside without a jacket. Another board suggested haunting as the cause for the smells, but I didn’t think a ghost could pass through the blood-brain barrier. A lot of the stuff you read online is bogus.
The more I read, the more my symptoms increased. It became obvious to me that excessive Internet use was causing my brain cells to revolt, but like any good rubberneck, I couldn’t help reading about tumors, frontal lobes and epilepsy, with the occasional article about astronaut diapers. I knew I should stop, but where else could I go to get the proper diagnosis?
After spending hours fretting about my imminent demise as I poured over Web page after Web page, pausing only to see if someone on the “Grey’s Anatomy” cast had recently said something stupid, a curious thing happened: My neck stiffened terribly. I added that into the “check your symptoms” section of WebMD and learned that I also had meningitis, a scourge of college students everywhere. Who would have thought that perpetual Internet use would make an otherwise healthy person so gravely ill? Oh, curse this corporal existence!
I thought that complaining to my wife would make me feel better, but she told me to stop whining and see a doctor. Reluctantly, I made an appointment at the University Health Center, which is in 20 minutes. I’ll let you know how malignant my tumor is after I get an MRI. I’ll return shortly.
…
OK, it isn’t a tumor or meningitis. The doctor said I have a sinus infection, but how was I supposed to know that the green sticky stuff coming out of my nose was mucous and not melting gray matter? Still, I bet there’s a corollary between sinusitis and brain tumors. I’ll just type them both into Google and see what I find.
[email protected]