Foodster

Some people LOVE food. They watch the Food Network passionately, turn giddy at the prospect of going to the grocery store, and spend hours happily and furiously cooking away in the kitchen, ending up with some magnificent and delicious dish. The joy of a complicated culinary achievement, especially one of their own creation, is one of their greatest pleasures in life.

I am not one of these people. To me, food is a necessity rather than a pleasure. Of course there are foods I like, and I get cravings, but in general I could live happily on fruit and cold cereal. Sometimes when my husband and I were dating, I would cook for him, which could be nice if I didn't set it on fire. But I don't get much out of purchasing or preparing or eating incredibly well-prepared food. In fact, I DID live happily on fruit and cold cereal, with the occasional pop-tart thrown in, for all 4 years of college. Then I married my husband.

My husband IS one of these people. His favorite time of day is when "America's Test Kitchen" is on and he can watch it. He thrills at the prospect of grocery shopping, especially once he reaches the fine cheeses section. He spends hours in the kitchen, and emerges with incredible and fantastic dishes that even I confess are really astoundingly yummy.

I am grateful for this arrangement. Because the kitchen has never drawn me, most of my attempts at cooking end up disastrous. I am one of few people you may meet who has set spaghetti on fire. I was unsettled as our marriage neared, because I knew that I could not cook a delicious meal for my husband 9 times out of 10 if my life (or marriage) depended on it. What an embarrassment of a Mormon wife I would be!!! But it has worked out great - he would rather be the one cooking anyway, and I get to branch out of my breakfast-food-diet. I think he likes it too, because I never ask to be taken to fancy restaurants. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the romantic atmosphere of sharing an exquisite 3-course meal with the love of my life. But I'd prefer a date to Taco Bell or Chipotle over fancy food any day.

Med Student Syndrome

There exists a phenomenon called "medical student syndrome," where when a medical student learns about a rare disease, they become convinced that they suffer from it, because they share some of the same symptoms at times. This may happen to the student over and over again throughout the course of their medical education. There is another condition called "conversion disorder," where psychological stress manifests itself as real symptoms, such as pain or paralysis, experienced by the patient with no obvious physical cause.

I'm pretty sure I have some strange combination of these two disorders. Rather than learn about a disease and think I have it because I've experienced those symptoms in the past, I actually start getting the symptoms of whatever we are learning about. These symptoms are real, and usually scare me to death. I had severe chest pain radiating into my left arm when we were studying the cardiovascular system and heart attacks. I had several bouts of acute, 20-minute losses of vision when we were learning about ophthalmology. I was awakened from sleep by a sudden, strong pain and swelling in my leg the night after we learned about deep venous thrombosis. And so on.

My policy has become this: do nothing, unless the symptoms don't stop once we've finished the unit we are learning. Every one of these bouts of symptoms I have had have cleared up as soon as I finished studying that medical topic. Weird, huh? I wonder if this just happens to me or whether it's more common among my peers than I realize.