Was watching an episode of House last night (probably an old series for you). The one with the magician who swallowed a key, and it turned in his intestines when he went into the MRI unit. Magnets shmagnets. The key was tiny!
Anyway, one of House's recruits was a bit hypochondriac about the possibility she had Huntington's disease, since her mother died at a early age of the disease. Basically its a neuromotor disease similar to Parkinson's and strongly genetically linked (50% chance if one parent had died from it). The woman never got tested to see if she would be likely to develop the disease. Why? Not knowing gave her hope. She could confidently do things like learning to fly and all other motor-cognitive activities she wanted to do (like being a doctor). Her premise at the end was revealed-- questions are asked in medicine and most of the time you can get an answer or do a differential diagnosis by running some test. But when there are no more answers left, then one loses hope. There is no cure for Huntington's. But she wanted to still have her hope until that day she becomes truly symptomatic.
Maybe that's for the best. To NOT know the answer. It gives us hope. You can't have it both ways, to worry about something that's out of your control, and have hope at the same time. Be happy then, have hope. Tough to be a scientist, who needs to explain away the magic, but much easier to be a doctor. Or a writer, or an artist.
Oh there's just so much to say so little time! Will write about my weekly mantra tomorrow.
