Death by Google

Raise your hand if you’ve ever used your favorite search engine to diagnose yourself with Osteomyelitis.

….(still waiting for hands)

 Just me then? For those who don’t know, osteomyelitis is when an ingrown toenail becomes so infected, it spreads to the bone, therefore causing an excess of pedicures and probably death.

Google is a good friend of mine. Just in the last year, I’ve used it to learn about

Bailey’s Irish Cream
Curmudgeon (guessing I was looking up the spelling)
Famous Christmas song lyrics
Jennifer Nettles’ husband (Google Images of course)
Ombre Hair
The Snotsucker (eww)
When Kids Should Use a Pillow
(and last but not least)
Yom Kipper (because why not).

And that’s just my work computer. While it has been helpful for the above, Google, and especially Google Images, has never helped me in diagnosing a health issue, except to misdiagnose it via exaggeration. Leave it to me to convince myself a common cold is early-onset dementia.

You’d think I’d learn, but when Faith had a mild fever on Friday morning, followed by two bumps on her lip that popped up late Saturday and Sunday, I was sure it was a coldsore… or infantigo, or scarlet fever, or fever blisters, or symptoms from a cold, or (and this is the one I was leaning to) the end of the world.

Pretty sure Rob contemplates the big D every time Faith gets sick as I turn a molehill into the Rockies.

Enough was enough on Monday. I called the nurse line at our pediatrician’s office because I wasn’t satisfied with what the other nurse line told me on Sunday. (Rosacea or something? No. That wasn’t nearly tragic enough.) After relaying Faith’s symptoms, she told me a Dr. would like to see her.

The Dr. took about .024 seconds to look at her lip, and then a speck tinier than Whoville on her finger and diagnose Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease.

Do NOT. I repeat DO NOT go Google Imaging this thing.

But if you really want to, here’s a link: DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YA!

Thankfully, Faith has/had a VERY mild case so it’s just the two bumps on her lip that are visible to the normal eye. After learning there was absolutely nothing we could do for her, other than ice cream, we celebrated with dinner at Subway. The Lindquists go big or go home y’all. I was in the best mood of my life that night since I knew WTF “it” was. Lesson: don’t visit Dr. Google…that is, unless you want to learn about:

ADHD in adults
Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti
Evil Knievel
Famous moms and daughters who look alike
Growth on dog’s gum (there I go again)
and Nacho Toppings.

(courtesy of our home computer). 

What have you Googled lately?