Sympathetic Reading
I was reading a scene yesterday in The Razor's Edge where a character named Gray is experiencing these debilitating headaches. Migraines. His friend Larry arrives and cures him through hypnosis and half-hinted techniques involving some combination of mysticism and psychology (same difference, some would say). A few paragraphs into reading the scene, a small pain starts at the back of my head. By the end of the chapter, the pain has grown into a full-fledged, skull-crushing headache. And no Larry in sight to cure it. Thank God for Tylenol. Still, it meant I was out of commission for most of the evening and got nada accomplished.
In my all-time favorite book, Maugham's Of Human Bondage, the main character has a club foot. Every time I read it, I end up with a shuffling limp that I have to consciously fight off. I can pretend that this all due to my heightened artistic sensitivity and my ability to become one with the character, but it's probably just a precursor to hypochondria.
I'm also one of those people who can't watch medical shows without suffering sympathy pains. Which sucks since I end up watching half of House through eyes squinted shut to avoid potential lancing pains through my vital organs. (Not that it's mattered much recently. I missed so many episodes of this past season, I decided to just wait for the DVDs.)
Where this gets really bizarre is when I watch The Disorderly Orderly; Jerry Lewis plays an aspiring doctor who has a sympathy-pain disorder. I end up with sympathy pains for his patients and sympathy pains for his sympathy pains all at the same time--from a Jerry Lewis comedy. Oh, and sympathy pains from any "accidents" and "injuries" that occur, which given that this is slapstick... I can't watch the Three Stooges either. And no, it doesn't help that I know it's all fake. If it looks real, I hurt. Takes the fun out of a lot of comedy.
For some reason, stories about knee injuries are the worst; I hear one of those, I'll be hobbling around for a week. I don't know what that's about. Knees.
Note to self: Writing about headaches and knee pain is as bad as reading about them. Please stop.
What I'm reading: I don't know. Maybe I should switch to something safer, like Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs or Viking!... No, those are just painful in different ways.
In my all-time favorite book, Maugham's Of Human Bondage, the main character has a club foot. Every time I read it, I end up with a shuffling limp that I have to consciously fight off. I can pretend that this all due to my heightened artistic sensitivity and my ability to become one with the character, but it's probably just a precursor to hypochondria.
I'm also one of those people who can't watch medical shows without suffering sympathy pains. Which sucks since I end up watching half of House through eyes squinted shut to avoid potential lancing pains through my vital organs. (Not that it's mattered much recently. I missed so many episodes of this past season, I decided to just wait for the DVDs.)
Where this gets really bizarre is when I watch The Disorderly Orderly; Jerry Lewis plays an aspiring doctor who has a sympathy-pain disorder. I end up with sympathy pains for his patients and sympathy pains for his sympathy pains all at the same time--from a Jerry Lewis comedy. Oh, and sympathy pains from any "accidents" and "injuries" that occur, which given that this is slapstick... I can't watch the Three Stooges either. And no, it doesn't help that I know it's all fake. If it looks real, I hurt. Takes the fun out of a lot of comedy.
For some reason, stories about knee injuries are the worst; I hear one of those, I'll be hobbling around for a week. I don't know what that's about. Knees.
Note to self: Writing about headaches and knee pain is as bad as reading about them. Please stop.
What I'm reading: I don't know. Maybe I should switch to something safer, like Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs or Viking!... No, those are just painful in different ways.
posted by tinatsu at 2:28 AM
2 Comments:
Hmm, Im learning more and more about my wife from this blog. She feels what she reads or writes. You should of seen here when i came home from working as a nurse to tell her about my day in the trauma unit.
Yeah, blogging's also an interesting way of learning things about oneself, not because you never knew these things, but just expressing them "aloud" means kind of figuring out things in the specific.
Anyway, I was going to say, the pilot episode of House made me think back to all the times I had pork that was perhaps slightly undercooked. It was enough to make me think of switching to kosher. When my girlfriend (who was almost a licensed doctor at the time) saw it, she laughed at how unlikely it all was. She says E.R. is still the one and only realistic medicial TV show she's ever seen. Of course, she only saw the pilot. And I do think the main character in House is a good one.
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