Deserae works as an operating room nurse in the Cleveland Clinic urology department, a department that was recently ranked #1 in the country. She takes a lot of pride in working on cases that no other hospital will touch; unfortunately, this means that she always wants to share intimate details about the world’s most disgusting medical cases. During dinner.

“So today, this guy had the biggest _________ on his _____________ that I’ve ever seen.”*

*I am taking out the disgusting parts. I would say, “use your imagination,” but it really is worse than you could imagine.

“The __________ was __________, _________ and really, really _________. So the doctor had to go in and retract the ____________ and ___________ the ______________ while _____________ and I said, ‘Can I touch it?!’ and he let me and it was…”

“OKAY!!!!!!!”

Another unfortunate side effect of Deserae seeing all the worst things in the world is that she always believes she has them.

“Dustin, can you see if this is red?”

“It looks like a mosquito bite.”

“It’s been itching too long to be a mosquito bite. I think it’s [unintelligible, 5-syllable disease].”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a disease that starts to ______________ your _____________.”

Stunned silence.

“That’s an image I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life now.”

Deserae’s Google search history consists of variations on this sentence: “Is [common symptom such as coughing, sneezing, headache, etc.] a symptom of [body part] cancer?” A few months ago, she told me she’d been feeling tired lately, then hit me with this:

“Do you think I have AIDS?”

“Ummm, do you know how you get AIDS?”

“Yes, Dustin. I know how you get AIDS. But I work around a lot of blood! You never know.”

I do not enjoy telling Deserae about my symptoms, because she is quick to use her diagnostic skills on me too. That’s why I kept the itching to myself.

Two weeks ago, my belly started itching. Then my chest, back and arms. I finally looked in the mirror and saw tiny red bumps all over. I decided to treat these bumps the way I treat every medical, mechanical and relationship problem: ignore it and hope it goes away.

Three days later the bumps were still around, so I turned to Google to diagnose the problem. WARNING: Do not do a Google image search of “red bumps all over” unless you never want to sleep again. It is the equivalent of turning Deserae’s dinnertime stories into the world’s worst picture book.

Do not Google “red bumps all over” unless you never want to sleep again.

After four days, I finally decided to show Deserae.

“Hey hon, look!” I said as I lifted up my shirt.

“What?” Deserae stared at me. “I don’t have time for…WHAT IS THAT?!”

Deserae predictably freaked out and demanded that I go to the doctor. I did not go to the doctor. She demanded some more. She Googled. She told me all sorts of horrible things it could be.

She finally decided that if she couldn’t get me to go to the doctor through freaking out, perhaps she could with the combined power of her and my mom freaking out. So on Sunday, she told my mom.

“Dustin, show your mom your bumps?”

“Bumps?” my mom said. “What are you talking abou…WHAT IS THAT?!”

It worked. I went to the doctor on Monday. In the waiting room, I had the following text exchange with my mom:

“I hope you are going to the doctor today, cause I’m getting pretty grossed out looking at all these rashes online.”

“STOP LOOKING AT RASHES!!!”

The doctor’s office is not my favorite place for a number of reasons. One of them is because of interactions like the one I had with the nurse who checked me in.

“Now for your measurement. Stand up nice and straight. Hmmmmmm, OK, how tall do you think you are?”

“I think like 5’11”?”

“That’s right! You’re getting tall!”

I just stared at her.

“I’ll bet you’ll get over 6 feet soon!”

She grinned. I stared some more. Do 29-year-old human beings experience growth spurts that often? I know I look like I’m 16 years old, but she had my date of birth right in front of her.

Anyways, the nurse practitioner eventually came in, asked a few questions looked at my bumps and decided I’d probably developed some sort of allergy. She prescribed Claritin – an over-the-counter allergy medicine. She also threw in a cream and an antibiotic because why not.

I texted Deserae what I’d been told. Deserae was not a fan of the advice. She went on a texting spree.

11:30 AM Claritin?!!! That’s weird.
11:30 AM Claritin is for seasonal allergies!!
11:31 AM Did she even take your temperature?
11:34 AM I’ll see what I can find out here.
11:41 AM Everyone is saying go to the dermatologist.

Now my rash was the topic of conversation for an operating room full of strangers.

12:29 PM Send a picture.
12:30 PM If you could do it soon, that would be great.

No way.

1:32 PM Send a pic.
1:35 PM Please send a quick picture. I’ve been asking for an hour.
1:35 PM It will take 2 seconds.
1:39 PM Take a picture of your dots and send it to me before I LOSE MY MIND!!!

I sent the picture. Five minutes later, a group of licensed medical professionals led by my wife had reached their conclusion.

1:45 PM We have all decided that you have chicken pox.

LIFE LESSON #89

Trying to diagnose a disease? The only thing worse than Google is a roomful of hypochondriacs.

Epilogue: I am fine now. It was an allergy thing. It was not chicken pox.