When You Ask A Car Forum For Help With Health Issues: COTD

Sometimes it can feel as if ships full of tiny goblins are following you around and making your life unnecessarily difficult. Ok, if you haven’t watched the latest episode of Doctor Who you haven’t the foggiest idea of what I’m talking about. Look, sometimes you start your day by Pao-ing a deer and end it on a hospital bed. Life seems to dole out bad situations at the worst times, but when that happens, Autopian’s readers may do what seems to be the impossible.

Torch unexpectedly found himself potentially at death’s door before being flung into the meat grinder that is the American healthcare system. Unfortunately, if your medical malady doesn’t ruin your life, hospital bills will. But, Torch has been lucky enough to begin recovering back to his normal self with the help of his friends and a whole heaping of love from you, the readers. All of you have sent Torch so much love. In addition to that, you’ve also sent him a ton of money, $27,259, in fact! That’s enough to buy a Hyundai Elantra and still have money left over for taxes and such.

So, all of you rock! For today’s COTD, I want to highlight some more love and humor being sent Jason’s way. Jb996 caught my attention with this hilarious scenario that I hope will never happen in real life:

So glad you made it and that you’re on the mend.

I keep envisioning the difference between professional doctors and car-forum DIY’ers.
Post: I have a dissected Aorta. How do I fix that?
All replies and doctor discussions would then fall into two categories.

1) questioning the diagnosis.
– Are you sure you have a dissected Aorta? That’s really rare. Have you ruled out a heart attack?
– It could be bad indigestion. I had that once and it also hurt really bad. You should rule that out.
– How did you diagnose that? You should convince me first before I offer any advice.
– What’s your make and model?!

2) Offering unhelpful while-your-in-there (wyit) advice.
– I don’t know about Aortic dissections, but you should have a quadruple bypass wyit, those need done sometimes, and you might as well.
– You should just replace the pump entirely. You’re probably still on the original!
– You know, if it extends into your abdomen, you should look into having your Gallbladder and Appendix removed. Those were put there from the factory, probably just for emissions, but they aren’t really needed, and are known failure points.
– Have some hernia mesh put in wyit! Aftermarket is better, and will last longer than the original factory parts.

Note that none of the doctors would have actually addressed your problem, or explained how to fix you.

Thank goodness they were professionals!!!

Is that worse or better than WebMD? Next we have Morgan van Humbeck with this heartwarming comment:

The various posts about this debacle have really laid bare how important you are to me, Jason. It’s kinda crazy, but you’ve been my favourite author for ten years… a quarter of my life. Thank you for living. Please keep doing so.

Oldhusky is wise with this next comment. In my experience, a lot of car communities can be full of jerks and other, worse flavors of people. Our community shows itself to be so much better:

Your reflection that car people are the kindest most welcoming people is only partially accurate. It’s true that we are all car people here, but not all communities of gear heads are the same, and most would not have shown the outpouring of love and generosity as occurred here. That is because, beyond being car people, we are all David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky people, more specifically. The nature of this community comes from the amazing people who started it and not just the weirdos you attracted but the example that you set–that cars are about human connection and meaningful existence, that all car people are our people, that there is no right or wrong way to be a car person. It is no accident that you and David have generated such an amazing community around you, but because of who you are. We are grateful that you did, and grateful that you are healthy. We love you, Torch. Thanks for being you, and also not being dead.

Finally, we have a comment from Doctor Nine that could make you shed a tear:

You’re a marvelous and one-of-a-kind human being Jason. And all of us are very glad that Sally and the emergency crew got you help when they did. There was very little time to get it right. And you did.

I am an academic hospitalist who helps patients and their families through the dying process with some regularity. And I can tell you, that neurosensory experience you were having, is indeed what happens when the brain is selectively shutting down.

So yeah, you were pretty close there, old buddy. You had a great team to pull you through it though. Events like this can be life changing. I know it’s the holidays, and everyone normally focuses on friends and family. But that’s doubly true this year.

We’re relieved that you made it. Because you are, literally, irreplaceable.

Honestly, all of your comments and help have been fantastic. We cannot say when Jason will be back on these pages regularly, but thank you! Have a great evening.