Rumours Of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Google said I’m going to die

© Susie Kearley

On Monday, I had an awful experience. I was trying to do a poo because we were going out and I needed to evacuate before we ended up somewhere with no toilet. It was a strain. In fact, if I’d realised how much of a strain, I might not have started, but here we are.

As I pushed, there was this awful burst of something in my neck. I thought I’d burst a blood vessel or something. It felt utterly horrible and my chest and throat were very sore. I get a lot of blood blisters in my mouth, so I thought it could be the world’s biggest blood blister in my neck. I tried not to worry and went for a walk anyway. Hoped it would go away.

Back home, three hours later, I felt faint and horrible, my chest hurt, my neck hurt, I felt nauseous. I had a lie down, which helped. I Googled the problem. Google said I would probably die.

A burst blood vessel can lead to stroke and death, and even a minor burst blood vessel can lead to liver damage. If it’s a ruptured oesophagus then you can end up with food stuffs in the wrong place, causing infections and liver damage, and then you’ll die from the infections or liver damage, or blood clots, or 101 other things.

Anyway, I suspected it wasn’t that bad, but it was VERY sore, so I phoned NHS 111 because I was wondering whether I needed to take asprin to prevent a blood clot making its way to my brain, or anywhere else, while my poorly oesophagus healed. Because Google was convinced I had blood clots.

A week has passed. It’s still sore. I haven’t died. The lady on NHS 111 told me that Google was a Drama Queen and I’m probably going to be fine, but I should make a doctor’s appointment to check.

Anyway, the following day, I came to a different conclusion based on logic alone: acid reflux. Not my usual thing, but I know the sphincter muscles in the stomach aren’t as strong after menopause, so things like this are more likely to happen.

I asked Google why my oesophagus was sore after straining. On this occasion my question delivered a very different result to burst blood vessels.

Google’s fancy new AI gismo came to the same conclusion: I had experienced a bad case of acid…