We must never neglect the patient's own use of his symptoms.
I take Sudafed to combat my congestion, so I always carry some with me because I like to be prepared and make sure I'm ready whenever symptoms strike. It's also a really good idea to figure out what your triggers are.
Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness.
The problem with my mother is that she didn't go to the doctor. And I think by the time she started to show symptoms that something might not be right, and finally went to the doctor, she was so close to her death that she couldn't get the care she had needed. Her big issue was not going to the doctor.
Like most manic depressives, some of my symptoms included racing thoughts that I simply had to act upon - flying from New York to Paris and taking the train to Berlin; flying to Argentina in the middle of the night; spending tens of thousands of dollars on unnecessary garments, dinners and gifts.
In medical school, it's quite possible to get taught that you can diagnose everybody and treat everything. But then you get out in the real world and find that for most patients walking through your door, you have no idea what's causing their symptoms.
I remembered reading about a disease called Leishmaniasis, which matched my symptoms. I'd always thought it was an old wives' tale - a sand fly bite that eats your flesh. But when I looked on the internet and saw pictures of people who had it, their lesions looked like mine.
There is no cure for prions. They are a protein-based disease that, among other things, targets and transforms your brain. The symptoms reveal themselves differently in each host, and you might go months or you might go years before you realize you're infected.
What some of us believe is that it is possible that if chemicals are related to Gulf War illness that some of the more severe symptoms may not erupt until 10 or 20 years down the line.
We've got to stop focusing solely on the symptoms of crime, and start caring about the causes as well.
