A friend claimed to have flu yesterday, so I called her to offer tea and sympathy but she sounded perfectly fine. After reading the following article I decided she was suffering from factitious disorder:
Factitious disorders should be distinguished from conversion disorder, in which the patient is unaware that the symptoms being experienced are not medically caused.
Although she didn't react very well when I called her a malingerer.
Anyway, it reminded me of the following episode involving two friends who I will call Jack and Diane (a musical reference, of course):
I was living with Jack & Diane at the time and she was claiming to have flu. She was claiming this while curled up on a sofa drinking Lemsip and watching television. Jack suggested that she was being 'a fucking baby' and that all she had was a cold. 'No,' said Diane, 'it's flu. I am really ill.'
'If you had flu,' countered Jack, 'you would be in bed wishing you were dead. Flu is a major illness and killed 20 million people in 1918.'
'That wasn't flu,' said Diane, 'that was influenza.'
Oh, how we laughed at her. And that didn't go down very well either.
Factoid footnote: the 1918 flu virus was H1N1. The 1968 Hong Kong flu epidemic was H3N2, and Bird flu is H5N1. R2D2 was a droid.
Comments (5)
Maybe she was just trying to avoid you. What do you think?
Posted by John | January 19, 2006 5:20 PM
Posted on January 19, 2006 17:20
Second-guessing the female species is a reckless game and one that I retired from many years ago. :-)
Posted by Gerald | January 19, 2006 5:31 PM
Posted on January 19, 2006 17:31
Reading a great book about the pandemic of 1918. The Great Influenza by John M. Barry. Really interesting stuff. You would definitely know you had that version of the flu!
Posted by Alisa | January 20, 2006 12:48 AM
Posted on January 20, 2006 00:48
I had the flu last year. I drooled a lot.
Posted by Lauren | January 20, 2006 9:37 AM
Posted on January 20, 2006 09:37
My husband is home today with FD. Self inflicted stomach problems. He know he should eat certain things and drink certain things, but does he care. Nope!
Posted by DayByDay4-2Day | January 23, 2006 1:54 PM
Posted on January 23, 2006 13:54