Visit to Doctor Google's Clinic

[Serenity1990]

This is pinched from another site, to which I won't link as it's one of those that wants to profit from its advice.

I recently made an appointment with Dr. Google. He’s the quickest doctor around – you don’t really have to book an appointment. Just ask him any question and he replies in milliseconds. Luckily I made a transcript of our conversation:

Dr. Google: How can I help you?

Me: I’m having mild chest pain. Is it serious?

Dr. Google: HEART ATTACK! HEART ATTACK! HEART ATTACK! CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY!

Me: Excuse me?

Dr. Google: Someone had mild chest pain the other day and DIED FROM IT. The Daily Mail confirmed this.

Me: But my regular doctor told me my heart was fine. Can you tell me what else it might be?

Dr. Google: PULMONARY EMBOLISM! ACUTE BRONCHITIS! CHEST CANCER!

Me: Err thanks Doc. While you’re still here, I’ve been having a few random twitches in my arm. My regular doctor says it’s benign. What do you think?

Dr. Google: YOU DEFINITELY HAVE MS!

Me: But…

Dr. Google: HAVE YOU RECENTLY BEEN EXPOSED TO NERVE GAS? BECAUSE THAT CAN CAUSE INVOLUNTARY MUSCULAR CONTRACTIONS.

Me: No Doctor, but I’ve been getting a few stomach pains at random. What’s your expert opinion?

Dr. Google: BOWEL CANCER! STRANGULATION OF A HIATAL HERNIA! ARE YOU AN ALCOHOLIC?

Me: No, but you’re in danger of turning me into one…

Dr. Google: PANCREATIC CANCER THEN!

Me: Goodbye Doctor, I’m getting a bit sick of this.

Dr. Google: IF YOU’RE GETTING A BIT SICK, IT COULD BE LEUKAEMIA!

[Catherine S]

Love it...made me laugh out loud :D

[GmcD]

Haha that is great and sadly so true.

[sarahsarah]

Oh my goodness, that post is me to a tee! Thanks for showing me how ridiculous I (and I suspect many more of us on here) can be and giving me a giggle! Xx:D

[3tikes]

Haha, that made me chuckle. :roflmao:

[skippy66]

Firstly, Serenity1990, thank you for 'pinching' an article that I wrote about 2 weeks ago on my blog, and deciding to copy and paste it on here without my permission.

Your reasoning for doing so confuses me. You won't link to the site as it's 'one of those that wants to profit from it's advice'. Well yes, I have written a book called How to Beat Health Anxiety and I use my Health Anxiety HQ blog in order to generate more awareness of the book. The main reason I do this is because I genuinely want to help people who are in the situation I found myself in a few years ago. I see hundreds of people on here every day who are crying out for help with their health anxiety, and I've spent many hours of my own time replying in depth to these people in an attempt to help them. You may point out that I have a signature which links to my book. True, I asked permission from the owners of this site and they allowed me to do it, probably because they know that my prime objective is to help people get rid of their health anxiety. If you look at the reviews on Amazon, all bar one is a five star review so the book is obviously helping some people.

The book took me about three months of my life to write. I have my own business separate and unrelated to this, but I took time out from it to write 'How to Beat Health Anxiety'. I created the blog to try and spread the word about the book, to try to get it up the Amazon rankings. I personally believe that it's more helpful than the other books on health anxiety because it's been written by someone who's actually been there and come out the other side rather than some doctor who has never experienced what it's like - but I'm biased.

I want to talk about 'profit from it's advice'. For every copy of my book sold, I earn around £4 in commission after Amazon has taken it's generous cut. Yes, I am happy when a copy is sold because that's an extra £4 to help me feed my 2 young children, and I have another on the way too. My main aim in life is to provide for my family. It's not a lot, but every little helps, and if I can help someone overcome their health anxiety for £4 then I think they've got a pretty good deal.

So what do you expect from me? Would you rather I simply gave this book away to everybody for nothing? Would you rather I didn't do anything at all to try and promote it? Should I have worked hard for 3 months for absolutely no return? Because although some people do devote their lives to charities etc, it's simply not financially or time feasible for the majority of people who have jobs to do and families to bring up.

Perhaps I should just leave this forum, stop promoting my book and shut down my blog? The truth is that were I not planning to sell my book and gain at least some kind of return for the time it took to write it, then it would not have been possible for me to write it at all.

As far as pinching people's content without linking to them is concerned, will you only link to websites like the NHS? Which, let's remember, receives billions in funding from the taxpayers allowing them to employ staff to write all their articles. Or just stick to this site, which is an amazing resource but also has a 'Shop' section to try and get something back for all the hard work Nic and others put into it? Or a site like Patient.co.uk, which is another profit-making website?

I haven't been active on this forum the past few days as I've been ill (oh the irony). I'm now thinking that I should just leave for good, as I simply don't have the time or resource to spend any more hours trying to help people for nothing, although I would love to if I was mega-rich or retired or something. Obviously some people have a problem with me trying to create more awareness of my book.

I hope at least some of you have benefited from some of my posts on here, and I hope that you are able to conquer your health anxiety and get your old lives back very soon.

Mike

[Tanner40]

Skippy, I have found your advice invaluable and you've been a huge help to me in my recovery process. I certainly, along with many others, hope that you are turning profits from your book sales. Don't allow one person's actions to drive you away and keep others from being helped by your experiences.

[skippy66]

Thank you Tanner, I appreciate the support.