Differential Diagnosis

I am terribly ill. Metaphorically.

The signs and symptoms are visible but the diagnosis remains inconclusive. I know I’m dying. No one has to tell me — I can feel it.

The symptoms are psychological in nature and they are slowly creeping into the fibers of my soul, little by little eating what’s left of me. If the cause of this illness will not be identified now, I’d soon be dead in a few days — or hours.

I can’t sleep. No matter how much “House MD” series I take and push myself to be addicted to it for a short period of boob tube time, withdrawal syndrome will just be so fast that I’d be out of it right after turning the television and DVD player off. This symptom is usually followed by another one: I’d get back to my pillows to bury my head and cover my ears. I couldn’t cry, despite my longing for it. No tears would want to well up from my eyes and provide a hot comfort against my cheeks. Maybe my tear gland is too drained and my body is struck by numbness, drowning myself into a paroxysm of sadness.

I can’t even have happy memories. They make me sad. How ironic.

The symptoms of my disease also include hallucinations and blurring of memories. It’s like Lupus, an auto-immune syndrome. My body is releasing a kind of psychological white cells to fight off the disease, which could be an infection brought by a rare kind of virus. Is it really rare or something common? Tests have to be done — maybe an MRI would completely explain why the said basic units seem to be attacking not the virus but the healthy part of me.

I’m also experiencing an intense body ache, so painful I want to shout and say, “I want to die! Now!” I don’t want to take a glimpse of tomorrow. Or of the day after tomorrow. I want to die with my whole body intact. I can’t afford to see it disintegrating until nothing is left of me. I want to die, death would certainly be sweeter and life is bitter in a state of unidentified illness like this.

I’m scared. It’s a kind of dreadful fear that couldn’t be solved by subtle bravery.

Maybe the key to a right and certain medical finding lies in my previous actions or experiences. But when it comes to such history, everybody lies. I lie. Or I don’t talk about them so that I won’t need to lie. Or I’ll just say half-truths, which would also end up a lie. Well, at least the latter offers a consolation of not really lying. It simply allows me not to tell the whole truth.

The last symptom is this blog. I hate writing. I don’t write. I won’t write. I don’t want anybody else to read my entries. Or just what I’ve thought so. But still, why am I writing this piece of nonsense?

So, if you’re my doctor, what would your findings be, metaphorically?

By the way, my illness is contagious; it’s “read-borne.” You read this post, you’ll get the virus. Sorry, if I told you this only now.#