‘Tis the Season for Weird Diseases

Posted by admin on Oct 29, 2005 in Volume 14 Issue 1 | 0 comments

Thanksgiving means something different to everyone. For some, it is a time to gather together with friends and family to gleefully participate in the atrocities of the wildfowl genocide that happen each year on turkey farms worldwide. For others, Thanksgiving means giving thanks for the gifts one has thankfully been given. For me, however, Thanksgiving has become a time of pure dread. It’s barely even fun anymore. You see, over the past couple years, I’ve picked up on this pattern in my life: every time a holiday comes around, I end up with some weird disease that alienates me from my friends and family and leaves me all alone in a black world of desolate agony.

Two Christmases ago, I had conjunctivitis (commonly known as pink eye). On reading break, I had ringworm – you might remember the story. I was vomiting on Valentine’s Day, and last Halloween, I broke out in hives. On Easter, I had an ear infection, and as luck would have it, I was having coughing fits on Canada Day. Last Christmas I was spared, but unfortunately once New Year’s came around, I found myself experiencing a fascinating batch of spontaneous nosebleeds.

By now, you may have noticed the strange pattern that I mentioned. It took me a while to notice it myself, since I was the one experiencing it. I guess it never occurred to me to cross-reference the medical names of the various conditions I was suffering from and compare them to the holidays on which I had them. But as time went on and I started telling stories about my diseases, I realized the bizarre trend that was happening: for every holiday that came around, my body was locating and contracting ailments that started with the same letter as the holiday! *

As you can imagine, after my Conjunctivitis Christmas, my Ringworm Reading Break, and all the other infections that have infested my festivities (Festivities? More like “Festivitis”), I’m a little apprehensive about the whole “holiday” idea. I mean, who knows what cleverly alliterated disease is just around the corner? Rabies on Ramadan? Yellow fever on Yom Kippur? Maybe Gonorrhea on Groundhog Day? Or maybe even…Venereal disease on Valentine’s Day?!

So please, you must forgive me if I’m a little scared of Thanksgiving. What really freaks me out about this particular holiday is that it has to happen twice at our school, thanks to the blessed Americans. And there are so many terrifying diseases that would pair up so nicely with Thanksgiving. Like Thalassemia? Who knows what that is. Thanatophoric Dwarfism? That sounds positively freakish. Thrombosis, Thyroid Infections, Thymoma, Thesaurismosis…? The “th-“ section of the Disease Book (yes, there is one) reads more like a list of Brutal Diseases That Have Ravaged Mankind Since The Formation of Earth.
It’s more than a week past Thanksgiving now, so I should probably let you know what the results were. Sure enough, I didn’t get just one malady, but two. The first one was a lisp (somehow, I totally chomped my tongue), and the second one was Sinusitis. I know Sinusitis doesn’t alliterate with Thanksgiving, but “Thinuthitith” sure does. Does that count?
People always ask “What did you get for Christmas?”, but then seem surprised when my answer is “Cryptosporidium.” I guess they expect me to name my presents. But no matter; the Yuletide season is still months away. Before that, I get to contemplate what sickness I might get this coming Halloween. That’s the one with the candy and the witches and the razor blades in the apples. The easy way out would be to acquire a little Hysteria to blend in with the spookiness motif. Personally, I’m a little worried that I’ll be stuck with Hypochondria again…

*My Conjunctivitis Christmas was probably the worst of them all. For all possible holidays to schedule Pink eye for, why would our benevolent God choose Christmas? There are plenty of other holidays to alliterate with that are less dependent on a functional set of eyes. I mean, what’s wrong with Columbus Day?

Let me offer a quick Pink-eye primer for the unacquainted. There are two main components to the conjunctivitis infection. First, while you are sleeping, your eyes get entirely glued shut by an alien substance that appears to be a mixture of nasal fluid and that stuff on top of your mustard bottle. After you’ve scraped that away and pried your eyelids open, your pupils are then jabbed by fifty-million mean-spirited men wielding red-hot barbed machetes. Literally. The men actually visit your house and jab you. After they leave, your pupils continue to feel this way each and every time you walk past a light bulb, or any other bright object, such as the sun. Then, your circle of friends ostracizes you out of fear of contagion, and because you look like you’re completely baked out of your mind. After a number of weeks, you may or may not get better. Nobody knows.