Jason Hellwege

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Why Your Test Results Are Always Great

I've found that the most galling aspect of CFS has been that whenever my doctor has sent me off to a pathology vampire to have several litres of blood sucked out of me, the end result has usually been:

Doctor: Well Jason, I've gotten your blood test results back. ...

Jason: ... And??!? ...

Doctor: ... Let's have a look for any positives, ... no ... no ... no ... no ... no ... no ............ no ... no .... no .... nnnnnnnnnnnnno. Well, we tested you for Beri Beri, Leprosy, Fred's Disease, fluorescent green spots, Oblong's Disease, Plague, Toxic Donut Poisoning, Yak Liver Flukes, Pimples, Sepik River Fever, Loose Morals and Spanish Whooping Malaria .... and do you know what we found? ... Zilch. Nothing. Not a Sausage. According to these results you are astoundingly fit and will live to be 127. Why have you been lying to me?!? What sort of a stunt are you trying to pull??!??

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I'm certain that you have all shared the same experience. Well, to comfort you in your moment of doubt and crisis simply select from the following possible explanations:

1) CONSPIRACY: The doctors and the pathologists are in it together. They deliberately test you for things which they know that you don't have, so that they can have all the fun of pumping as much blood and money out of you as possible. The fun and games will only end when you are proven to be poverty stricken or you turn to "a whiter shade of pale."

2) VAMPIRES: Pathology labs are riddled with vampires who particularly like the tangy aftertaste of your blood samples. The path labs, left with nothing to test, cover their tracks by reporting that there were no problems to find.

3) LUNACY: The pathologists are right, your are fit, it really IS all in your head. Jog on down to the nearest pub and spend several hours crying into your beer.

4) CONSPIRACY II: The government accidentally released a hideous germ warfare pathogen ... you caught it. To monitor the effects of the disease the government orders the health system to continually take blood samples from those afflicted. You are never advised of the truth about your condition, the tests all come back "negative." In about five years, when the disease enters its final stage, expect to dissolve into a bubbling pool of purple pus.

4) CHEAP HYPNOTISTS: At sometime (perhaps circa 1977) we all managed to watch the same broadcast of a cheap stage hypnotist's act. He made the mistake of suggesting that we were all incredibly tired and then forgot to "de-programme" us at the end of the show. The pathologists are right--we will all live to be 107! [I knew that I should have watched that Evel Kenevel special instead.]

5) THE NUTTY PATHOLOGIST: (1962) Colour, Repeat, 142 mins, PG. Jerry Lewis works part time as a pathology lab assistant. Wacky madcap fun ensues when Jerry repeatedly mixes up patient's blood samples with those of Olympic athletes being tested for steroid abuse.


Reproduced with permission from CATHARSIS, volume 25, June 1995.

© Jason Hellwege, 1996
J.Hellwege@latrobe.edu.au


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