Jan
4
Months ago I was talking to a conservative person about some cold symptoms and when I asked if they had tested for Covid-19 they were like: no, and I’m not going to, because I don’t care.
I could write eighty million blog posts on how saddened and angered I was and continue to be about the psychology of “la la la la NOT TESTING” but my forever bafflement has to do with the lack of curiosity. I mean, even if you’ve spent the last few years screeching out your righteous indignation about having to briefly wear a diaper for your big crying baby face, are you truly not even a tiny bit interested in what the test stick says?
I guess it’s much easier to pretend that whether or not you have Covid doesn’t matter to you or anyone else, because ______. (The virus isn’t real, or it isn’t as serious as science says, or it’s all a giant conspiracy, or whatever it is these people believe.)
Whatever. I can’t make sense of the mentality because 1) I never voted for Trump, and 2) I myself am endlessly curious about my meat sack’s inner workings and if I could get a full-body MRI scan every single day I absolutely would.
I don’t think I’m paranoid or even remotely close to being a hypochondriac: I just want to know All the Things. Why has my lower left back area bothered me for years and now it seems like I can feel the same pain radiating from my left hip? What’s going on with my right elbow when I try and do a pushup, is there a reason it always feels briefly “locked” before working? Why do my knees SOUND like that, for chrissakes?
Where am I in the perimenopause process? How’s my bone density doing? Is my liver riddled with holes because of all the Advil I take? Do I have too much visceral fat surrounding my organs? Is my lost IUD okay just space-trashing its way around my withered uterus? Can we get a peek inside an artery to add some context to the worrying news that I have high cholesterol? How’s my bicuspid aortic valve doing, is it functioning perfectly fine as it’s presumably been all my life, or is my heart warranty finally running out?
If there was an easy OTC test for “you have a regular boring old cold,” I would take it. Why not? Then I would KNOW. Who doesn’t want to know? WHY WOULDN’T YOU WANT TO KNOW.
Comments
-
My product review site:
[
Not only do I want to know all the things, I would take a vaccine for any physical ailment that’s the least bit inconvenient!
I ALWAYS WANT TO KNOW
OMG OMG OMG THIS IS ME!
I have numerous *very* close family members who have died of: end stage liver disease, anorexia (related ills), cancer (lung, lymphoma, bowel/colon, prostate, breast), pulmonary embolism, etc. Like I feel as if I am a walking minefield of health problems. It is legitimately terrifying.
I also hate invasive procedures, so “if I could get a full-body MRI scan every single day I absolutely would.”
100% AGREE
“I mean, even if you’ve spent the last few years screeching out your righteous indignation about having to briefly wear a diaper for your big crying baby face, are you truly not even a tiny bit interested in what the test stick says?”
HAHAHA. Ok, that was really good. I agree 100%. I would want to know. Always.
I’d want to know because I wouldn’t want to give it to someone else. Maybe by not wanting to know, they are hoping to avoid that twinge of guilt (that I HOPE they would feel) for passing it on to someone else. Can’t feel guilt if you don’t know for sure.
Oh god I literally never want to know, ever. Please just let me die by surprise instead of naming the million specific things I should be worrying about that not only scare me but also feel like personal moral failings.
I mean I get that! Probably the truth is that I DON’T want to know All the Things, because it would be Overwhelming.
I’m sorry… your LOST IUD?!?!?
Haha, YES. A valiant and painful medical effort was made to retrieve it but its strings have retracted to parts unknown. Doctor generally agreed that it’s “fine” to leave it be, like forever!
Yikes. New body horror fear unlocked. That’s some Cronenberg shit right there.
You have given me something new to worry about! lol
I absolutely want to know what’s going on in my body right this very minute just because I think the way the body works is fascinating, BUT! Those tests that check you for possible diseases you might be predisposed to get at some point in the future? ALL the nopes! Do NOT want to know!
I realize this makes zero sense, but I’m okay with that. Lol!
+1 to “Dying by Surprise” (Thanks Alison for that phrase!)
Yes same here! I am coughing my lungs out at the moment and I would love it if my MD would do more than just say “you have a cough” and send me home. I mean, is it the flu? pneumonia? covid (did self-tests, all negative)? I WANT TO KNOW THE REASON I AM COUGHING. However, my aunt had the type of breast cancer that makes us (all female family members) qualify for a free check to see if we carry the gene that makes us likely to get it too, and I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW. I mean, I may get cancer, I may not, that’s all I need to know (and I know that already).
Ha. Totally want to know all the things! I’m rather baffled by the people (typically guys) who run away from doctors and don’t ever go for check ups. My doc is a very patient, willing to discuss the random things I bring up to her.
I’m with you. I wanted to watch my kids being born even though I had to have c-sections and I wasn’t allowed – they strung up a curtain across my chest. They said they didn’t want me to freak out and panic, etc. when they cut me open, but I said “How often do you get a chance to safely look at your own guts? That would be so cool!” They were not swayed.
Even beyond the curiosity factor though, is I’d want to know how much I should be guarding against spreading a serious virus like Covid. I’m now at 3-weeks post-infection and my doctor just yesterday wrote me a note to work only half days for another week. And I’m relatively healthy and fully vaccinated with all the boosters available to me. I couldn’t imagine passing it on to my senior parents, or even through contact with someone vulnerable I don’t know in the grocery store. I did full isolation until I tested negative again at 13 days.
I definitely want to know!!! How can people not want to KNOW?
I don’t know anymore. Maybe we are too hyper focused on COVID? My kids have been sick so often this year. I know some of it is lapse in building their immune systems etc but the math still doesn’t add up. I think people are testing and saying “great, not Covid” and sending their kids to school sick or going out in the world themselves as if not having Covid means you aren’t contagious. There are *other* viruses and some of them can make people really sick, too. My 7 year old was scary sick at the beginning of the summer, but it was some other virus. Meanwhile, everyone got Covid just a little bit later and it felt like any other head cold. (Thank you, vaccine developers and lady luck.) Maybe we just stay home when we’re sick and in the contagion period, no matter what we’re sick with? I am guilty of this, too, for the record. I have a lingering cough from asthma related bronchitis, but took a Covid test before a meeting that included a bunch of people over 70 “to make sure I didn’t pick up anything since.” Which, even as I did it I knew was bull. I only knew I hadn’t picked up this one particular virus. Still, the pandemic has left it’s mark
Twice this fall my kid missed a week of school because some parent said “it’s not Covid so my kid should totally go to school”. Even though the hospitals are at critical levels because of all the respiratory viruses and flus right now, with even more cases than Covid.
The official position at my work is “stay home if you’re sick” not just if you have Covid, but if you have anything you can transmit. But I saw the head of my organization admit he had Covid on a virtual meeting one day, and he was in the office the next, no mask.
As far as Covid or the flu is concerned, I’d absolutely want to know just so I could make sure I wasn’t passing it to someone else, especially if they are immuno-compromised. As far as all the other things, in theory, sure – I’d love to know, but the reality of all.the.knowledge would overwhelm me. There’s an episode of This American Life called “In Defense of Ignorance” — it’s an interesting take on the not knowing.
Sign me up for the daily MRI. Also I did some genetic testing at OHSU and (I realize it isn’t always but) it was a huge relief to know some things.
I have taken SO MANY covid tests since 3/20. Only once has it been positive-in 4/22. I always want to know!
I’m 73 and have always been very healthy so I never ever worried about what I might or might not have. Yes, some things I have always wanted to know, as long as they didn’t hold the “put your shit in order” result. (Or as Bette Davis said so many times dramatically in Dark Victory: “Prognosis negative!”) But now that I’m in the down slope of life years, if I am going to have some fatal disease, I’d just as soon not know it, its too scary. I’ve seen too many people get sick and die and I’ve never understood how they were able to accept that terminal diagnosis. It’s very sobering to know that at best, I might only have 10 more years.
Yep. Exactly.