I am not a hypochondriac. Sure, my brother, my dad, my husband, and most of my friends all believe my illnesses are in my head, but that simply is not true.

Is it my fault that when I read about an illness I realize that that illness is what I have been suffering from all these years? I can’t help it if an article in the medical book described my exact symptoms or that those symptoms began to surface at the moment I was reading the article.

I found it very rude the other day when my brother cheerfully entered my parents’ house for a visit carrying a book called “First Aid for Hypochondriacs” and laughed as if it was a joke book. This is a very serious book and I’m so grateful to James Gorman (who at the time the book was published in 1982 was living in New York with a temperature of 102) for writing it.

In case there are other persecuted folks out there like me who would like to know about this book, let me relate to you some of the subjects in this book: The Importance of Panic in Any Crisis; How To Tell if Your Heart Has Stopped; Treating Shock and Disappointment; How to Say ‘I’m Sick’ in 20 Languages; and Never Use the Word Bleeding When Hemorrhaging Will Do.

Gorman’s preface to the book is truly brilliant:

“If you are one of those insufferably good people who like to help old ladies who slip on ice, and who yearn to rush to the aid of avalanche victims, this book isn’t for you. Go join a volunteer ambulance society, or give blood to the Red Cross — lots of it. This book is for people who have enough worries of their own, what with backaches, cancer and heart disease, people who don’t need to participate in mountain rescues to feel that they are gambling with death — swollen glands are risky enough. These people are hypochondriacs, which means that they — or we, since I count myself among them — care about their health. Never mind all the nonsense about hypochondria being a morbid or excessive concern with the body and health. Is it morbid to worry that a twinge in the chest could be the forerunner to the Big One? Is it excessive to insist that your wife [in my case husband] scrub down and sterilize her tweezers before she takes a sliver out of your toe? Is it too much to survey your body daily for the warning signs of cancer? No. No! No! Extremism in the defense of health is no vice. Medicine, like charity, begins at home. If you don’t look out for your body, no one else will.”
Preach it, Mr. Gorman! Whew. That is good stuff, right there. Trust me, if I didn’t continually tell people how sick I was, they would never notice!

The rest of the book is a great resource as well. It includes signs and symptoms, treatments, and first aid for some of the most common injuries and illnesses.
Take example contusions. Mr. Gorman recommends having others examine your bruises because of the “frightening changes bruises cause in the body.”

Advice offered by Gorman for contusions: “Say, ‘What a bump! Can you see it? Feel how big that is,’; Say, ‘Look at the color! Did you ever see anything like that? It must have bled a lot internally.’; Except for one-of-a-kind body parts, like the head, compare the bruised area to its normal counterpart. Have other people aid in the judging and confirm that one finger is, indeed, larger than the other. Also check the shape in case the bone might be broken.”

Although this book includes excellent advice and thoughts throughout, I especially enjoy the section on colds. What wisdom Mr. Gorman speaks when he writes that a major cause of colds is not only wet feet and winter, but “health chauvinism.”

“This is the biggest cause of colds, as well as a major source of unhappiness for all hypochondriacs,” Gorman writes. “Health chauvinists believe that it is a character flaw to catch a cold at all and unforgivable spinelessness to admit it. They are the people that are always saying, ‘I never get sick.’Consequently, while the sick hypochondriac stays at home keeping his germs to himself, the health chauvinist is out in public spreading cold virus as if it were Christmas cheer. He (or she, health chauvinism knows no sexual boundaries) seems not to notice his cough, his runny nose, the washboard scrape in his chest when he breaths. A health chauvinist with plague would come to work on a Monday morning in August and kiss you hello. Don’t try to convince health chauvinists that they are sick. Avoid them. It is not possible to be friends with them anyhow.”

My husband, I’ll have you know, is a health chauvinist. Beware.

Listen, the bottom line is — for all those out there who know they have some debilitating disease, but no one in your family will listen to you, I’m here for you.

I journeyed all the way through my ninth and tenth grade years determined I had a brain tumor. Now, simply because I didn’t have one and the symptoms gradually disappeared when I learned of other ailments I most likely had, does not mean I am a hypochondriac or a crazy person — and neither are you.

You are not alone. We’re in this together people. I’d write more encouraging words to you but my wrist is cramping and I’m quite sure it is carpal tunnel syndrome. I’m going to end this column so I can check my medical book just to be sure. I don’t know but it is possible the book could reveal to me that this pain is something much, much worse than what I originally thought it was.