Reviews for Dick Hern The Authorised Biography

The average rating for Dick Hern The Authorised Biography based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-02-12 00:00:00 Nicolas Pectol Jennifer Traig just makes me laugh. I loved her other book (Devil in the Details) too, mostly because she was 1. hilarious, and 2. totally crazy, just like me! This book is about her hypochondria. I am not a total hypochondriac, but just like in her last book, I found myself identifying with her in lots more crazy ways than I originally thought I would. For example, she talks about wanting to be the sick kid so that you can be the center of attention. While I never faked being sick, I thought of two childhood incidents where I imagined how cool it would to be injured/chronically ill. 1.I read a Judy Bloom book where a girl had MS and wore a brace to straighten her back. I secretly thought that sounded so cool and exotic. I was at the pediatrician about a year later, and he checked my spine. He mentioned that it looked slightly crooked and we should keep an eye on it. I said outwardly, “Oh, no. Is something wrong? I don’t want to like, end up wearing a brace or something.” Secretly, inwardly, I thought, “That’d be so cool if I got to wear a brace!!” For the record, my spine was fine and it was never mentioned again. 2.In third grade I was in love with a boy named Tyler. He was so dreamy in his Spiderman tennis shoes. I had a fantasy. It may sound odd, but it’s totally 100%, I swear on my life, true. It goes like this: Someone comes onto the school playground with a gun and I get shot in the foot. I forget why, but probably because I was heroic. I am sitting on the concrete with a bleeding foot, waiting for the ambulance to come. Tyler rushes to my side (instead of a teacher, I guess), concerned for my welfare. He asked in a worried tone, “Are you okay? Does it hurt?” I reply in a very witty fashion, “Well, it ain’t no hangnail!” I remember thinking to myself, “What is a hangnail? I should find out for sure before I use that clever line in real life.” I do not suffer from hypochondria under normal circumstances. However, my circumstances now (I am 6 months pregnant) negate that statement. I suffer from one small hypochondriatic (I probably made up that word) symptom – unless I feel the baby moving RIGHT NOW, I am pretty sure she is dead in there. The awful thing is, I’m not one to feel too attached to my fat stomach. I really don’t think much of the kid until he/she comes out. So instead of feeling horrified that my child is dead, I get bugged that I gained twenty pounds for nothing. Case in point – I went for my twenty week ultrasound a bit back. This is the big one, where they check all the baby’s organs and measure your cervix and tell you the gender. You may find out you’re having twins, your baby has two heads, or something else equally disturbing. They always tell you to come with a full bladder (so that when they push on your abdomen for 45 minutes, you can be extra uncomfortable). I thought I remembered that the full bladder made it easier for my organs to be pushed up and out of the way of the ultrasound wand’s view into my womb. I sat down on the ultrasound table, the lady lubed up my fatty stomach, and spent about 30 seconds peering into my insides. Then she said, “Hop up, and go ahead and go across the hall and use the bathroom.” She seemed cheerful enough, but all business. I hopped up, trying to act like everything was okay, despite it being strange that she didn’t need my bladder full for the other 45 minutes of the appointment. As I peed, I couldn’t help but come to the obvious conclusion: my baby is dead. She peeked, and saw it was dead. She sent me to the bathroom so that she could tell my husband first privately, and have him prepared to break the news to me that I had gained twenty pounds for nothing. I peed and washed my hands as fast as I could, just to get the bad news over with. I walked back in the room, and my husband gave me a little half smile greeting, which I thought was totally inappropriate for having just received news of our unborn daughter’s death. And the ultrasound lady! She was on the PHONE! How rude. But then it turned out no one was dead. In fact, the lady was just nice and only needed my bladder full to photograph my cervix, and so she took the picture she needed and then sent me to pee. I thought of a very possible case of hypochondria involving myself and breastfeeding, but probably mentioning my cervix in the last paragraph was enough personal info for one book review. Anyways, now in addition to being sick, I will always have to worry about whether I really AM sick, or if I just think I am sick. I’ll never know.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-10-09 00:00:00 Richard Ryons An interesting book- 3/4 memoir and 1/4 random medical nonfiction, Well Enough Alone is about a young woman plagued with minor hypochondria and anxiety, as well as some genuine health issues and how she deals (or doesn't) deal with them. Her voice is conversational and wry, and she is unafraid to laugh at herself, which makes parts of the book funny (the tooth fairy/dental problems chapter was amusing). Three stars.