The Parable of the Hypochondriac’s Prognosis

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, can more meticulous medical care guarantee us better health?”

Josh spoke thus:

A hypochondriac was sitting in the hypochondriac's doctor’s office.  The hypochondriac was ecstatic.

The hypochondriac had first been aware of the hypochondriac’s symptoms a few months before.  The symptoms were classic symptoms.

At first the hypochondriac suspected a low-fiber diet.  The symptoms were common symptoms of a low fiber diet.  The hypochondriac checked the diary of meals that the hypochondriac kept for just such occasions.  One’s meals were one’s diet, of course, and the hypochondriac reasoned, not unreasonably, that a diary of one’s meals would help one diagnose diet-related ailments.  So the hypochondriac checked the hypochondriac’s diary of meals and found that the hypochondriac’s diet was ideal in its fiber content.  So the hypochondriac ruled out a low-fiber diet.

Another possible cause for the hypochondriac’s symptoms was dehydration.  The hypochondriac did not keep a hydration diary--that would have been crazy, the hypochondriac thought--but the hypochondriac did have a record of the hypochondriac’s expenditures on pure water filters.  Purchase of a large number of pure water filters would have indicated a large amount of water consumed, while purchase of a small number of pure water filters would have indicated a small amount of water consumed.  Checking the hypochondriac’s expenditures on pure water filters indicated to the hypochondriac that hypochondriac’s consumption of pure water filters, and by extension the hypochondriac’s consumption of pure water, was on par with a healthy person’s healthy intake of pure water.  The hypochondriac therefore ruled out dehydration.

The hypochondriac went through all the possible causes of the hypochondriac’s symptoms that the hypochondriac could reasonably trace.  The hypochondriac investigated each with the same care that the hypochondriac had investigated fiber ingestion and pure water consumption.  After considerable research and considerable expense and considerable time, the hypochondriac had reached the unimpeachable conclusion that the hypochondriac had an incurable disease.

Unimpeachable as the hypochondriac’s conclusion was, the hypochondriac’s conclusion was unconfirmed by the hypochondriac’s physician.

The hypochondriac was trepidatious about approaching the hypochondriac’s physician.  The hypochondriac’s had approached the hypochondriac’s physician on many occasions, as a hypochondriac is wont to do, and had been shot down more times than not.  Being a hypochondriac, the hypochondriac was used to being proved wrong.  And the hypochondriac hated being proved wrong.

Except that this time, the hypochondriac was sure that the hypochondriac was not wrong. And so, trepidation or no trepidation, the hypochondriac approached the hypochondriac’s physician.

The hypochondriac’s physician had listened to the hypochondriac.  The hypochondriac’s physician had considered the hypochondriac’s symptoms.  The hypochondriac’s physician had considered the hypochondriac’s diet and the hypochondriac’s consumption of pure water.  The hypochondriac’s physician had considered the other prognoses the hypochondriac had elected and rejected.  The hypochondriac’s physician had considered the prognosis upon which the hypochondriac had settled.  The physician had commended the hypochondriac on the hypochondriac’s meticulous investigation and flawless logic.  The hypochondriac’s physician had ordered tests.

So when the hypochondriac’s physician had called to say the test results were in, and when the physician had asked the hypochondriac to come in, and when the hypochondriac’s physician had told the hypochondriac the hypochondriac’s physician’s diagnosis, the hypochondriac was ecstatic.

“You’ve got a terminal disease!” the hypochondriac’s physician had said, “It’s inoperable!  You’re going to die!  How are you ecstatic?”

“I was right!” the hypochondriac replied, “After all these years, finally, I was right?”