NEW YORK, NY – The Association for Self-Diagnosis, affiliated with numerous major medical schools, has identified fourthhand smoke as a new threat to the Munchausen population. Munchausen sufferers are universally and repeatedly seeking attention from the medical community to reiterate how sick they’re getting.
The discovery was made by Katherine Jones, a native New Yorker, who had just been re-discharged from her most-recent surgery. She was strangely specific and knowledgeable in her verbiage.
“I was home one day, nursing a mind-blowing migraine – seriously, you wouldn’t believe how bad it was – and my friend came to visit me. At first, I started to feel rattling in my bronchioles, then came the syncope. Before I knew it, I had full-on pertussis, as if the postdromal stage of my migraine weren’t enough!”
Jones continued her lengthy explanation of her diagnosis. “I asked my friend where she’d been: she told me she went to the mall. I was able to deduce that someone on the street had been smoking, then someone else was grazed by the wind from the smoke, and that my friend had then crossed paths with that person. The smoke then filled my home, and immediately I knew: this is fourthhand smoke we’re dealing with here.”
Mrs. Jones knew it was her responsibility to get the word out about the perils of fourthhand smoke. Others have since come forward with similar complaints regarding their numerous comorbidities.
“Given my history, it was obvious that this diagnosis would affect my ability to work,” said Nick D’Angelo, self-diagnosed with COPD NOS. “And the worst part is that there’s no treatment for fourthhand smoke; this is just something – dramatic wheeze – I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life… however much is left.”
We asked D’Angelo if he’d seen any healthcare professionals we could reach for discussion, but his response was vague. “Well, you know, I’ve been to a few different people, a few other people… some people after that. What’s important is how serious fourthhand smoke is to victims like me.”
The Association for Self-Diagnosis is traveling from hospital to hospital to stress how hard it is for patients to deal with living with the adverse effects of fourthhand smoke.
“When it comes down to it, I’m most worried about my daughter – if she feels the effects of fifthhand smoke by proxy, I don’t know what I’ll do,” Jones continued. “Oh dear, I’m in aura right now. I need to lie down. Someone, come watch me lie down, anyone. Or take me to the hospital—a new hospital, though. I don’t trust the doctors at the last place.”
Munchausen patients have begun the arduous task of getting insurance companies to cover the illnesses they’ve incurred from fourthhand smoke.
“Now that I can’t work anymore,” said D’Angelo, “I’m going to have to go on disability. And I should be paid for what fourthhand smoke has done to me and myself. I should be getting prescriptions, and also, the money for those prescriptions. If opiates are the only currently available treatment for my condition at the moment, so be it. I’ll do anything to ease the pain of my lingering cough.”
