Jeff Jarvis: Calling Dr. Google

I should have listened to Dr. Google. I woke up Sunday morning with the dregs of a cold, so I went back to sleep. An hour later, I woke up with a new pain on my right side about an inch down and three inches over from the navel. Given who I am -- chronic hypochondriac and a certified Google fan boy -- I searched Google for appendicitis.

By reputation, Google -- and the internet -- should have returned bogus, dangerous, uninformed, unauthoritative advice from cults, and witch doctors, and Demand Media. But it didn't. It gave me the NIH, WedMD, the Mayo Clinic, (yes) Wikipedia, and other good and trustworthy sources. It gave me more than enough good information to check and cross-check and then diagnose my new pain correctly.

But I didn't listen. First, I really am a hypochondriac. More than once, I've thought I had appendicitis, forgetting that it can't occur on the left side. And even I am struck by the absurdity of my recent medical history, all documented on my blog: atrial fibrillation, prostate cancer, thyroid cancer; surely, lightening is bored with me. I further found myself heeding those -- including doctors and nurses -- who pooh-pooh listening to Google. So I thought it prudent to wait and see whether this got worse, as I assumed appendicitis would, or turned into something else or nothing.

All day, the pain advanced. I repeat: This was a new, a unique pain to me. At 530pm, my wife and I went to a cocktail party at a friend's house that I'd been looking forward to. Fifteen minutes and one sip in, I knew I was in the wrong place, ready to succumb to hot flashes and God knows what else. I went home and drove to the hospital.

I think I can pinpoint the exact moment my appendix burst: at 730pm as I was going through the process of insurance, an even greater pain swept through me. In the emergency room, I was given pain medication, thank goodness, and tests, including, at some length, a CT scan. The scan eventually came back saying that I not only had a bloated appendix but also that it was "perforated." Now if they were sure the appendix had burst, the normal course, I was told, would have been to send me home with IV antibiotics for two weeks to clean up the sure infection that was just starting in my gut; then I'd return and they'd deal with it.

Luckily, very luckily, I had a hot dog doc who doubted the truth or extent of the oozage, given the freshness of my pain that morning, and so he decided to operate. At 2am, he started. He did, indeed find gunk in my belly and had to spend extra time flushing and vacuuming it up through three small holes in my belly -- one square in the navel -- for his arthroscopic instruments (two fewer than were needed for my robotic prostate operation). I was minus yet another body part -- I need some more spares! -- and lucky for it. Tuesday afternoon, after much IV antibiotics and pain meds, I went home.

Now here's the moral to the story: If I had gone straight to the emergency room at 10 that morning or anytime that afternoon, I'll bet my appendix wouldn't have burst and I would not have suffered the extra risk, bodily trauma, and uncertainty.

I should have listened to Dr. Google. All the good Doc did was send me to good docs -- not junk sources; note well that it's in Google's interest to give us quality and that is why its search algorithm has been changing for our benefit (there is no such thing as neutral search and I don't want it if anyone ever invents it). It gave me the information I needed to make an important decision and tell the doctors what they needed to know to make a diagnosis.

I -- of all people -- should not have doubted Dr. Google's healing power. Sorry, Doc.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-jarvis/calling-dr-google_b_1640310.html

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