To some degree and for some people, you are correct. My anxiety and occasional hypochondria was made worse by a period in my life a few years back when I suffered from PTSD after a traumatic illness nearly killed my wife. My PTSD primarily manifested as a pathological terror of the idea of death, for which I'm now grateful, because I get to be a healthy 43-year-old guy who's never had a life-threatening illness but still has the sense of the joy, beauty and preciousness of each day of living without having had to develop a brain tumor to have that awareness. But the lingering anxiety and periodic fear is the toll I pay for that awareness, I suppose.

To the LW who wrote about her doctor being her hypochondriac friend, we're deeply dysfunctional in this country in our attitudes not only toward health, but toward doctors. A friend of mine who is a psychiatrist (and completely off her own rocker), told me that one of the worst aspects of medical training in the U.S. is the surety that young docs are given that the body of knowledge they are gaining is definitive, when it is ANYTHING but. What we don't know about the body and mind, or what we think we know that proves to be incorrect or incomplete, vastly outweighs what's consistently proven to be correct over, say, 100 years.

The trouble comes when a) docs internalize this sense of being the one source of all knowledge and let it swell their egos, and b) when patients abdicate responsibility for their health and passively say, "Fix me." My friend told me, "You can't treat doctors as gods or sages. We're technicians, and the best of us are also wise counselors, but those are few and far between." In other words, most docs are going to look at you like a mechanic looks at a car. My mechanic once told me, "I can't fix it if there's nothing broken." Doctors are trained and paid to find broken things and fix them with solutions that allow companies to profit. Sometimes this works extremely well. Other times, they listen to your transmission, the one you SWEAR makes that noise, and tell you you're dreaming. They're just as human as anyone else, just as subject to their biases and egos and prejudices, and as harried and stressed as they are with the "disease care" system and constant insurance fiascoes to deal with, probably more likely than most professionals to throw a quick scrip at a problem that doesn't have an obvious solution and send you on your merry way.

This is why, in my humble opinion, anyone with sense approaches their health in the following manner: a) Take responsibility for it and make sure you're doing everything you can to keep yourself healthy and to know your mind and body; b) Use a variety of healthcare providers from traditional to CAM, because you never know what's going to work, and sometimes less is more (I have a friend who had double rotator cuff surgery and a year later was still in agony, then got an herbal supplement from a chiropractor and in two weeks was pain-free and remains so two years later); and c) Trust your own wisdom and the wisdom of those around you, even if they're not medical professionals. That's not to say you should substitute your mom's judgment for that of your cardiologist, but also don't dismiss decades of experience and observation. If you really think something's wrong, be a pit bull until you get answers. If someone you know is deeply intuitive or just really smart suggests a health answer that makes sense, investigate it.

Don't let doctors or insurance companies stonewall you. They're often looking for pat answers so they can feel right, make money and get you out of their offices. Make yourself a pain in the ass if you have to be. That's your job. Oh, and know a good auto mechanic.

Jesus Christ (oops, should I say that?), can't you guys go and bicker on the JREF Forum or something and leave this thread to the Carlin fans? Why is it that so many Salon comment threads end up down at this level:

DOGMATIC, ANGRY ATHEIST: I take myself VERY seriously, and you wrote something that suggested the slightest possibility of theistic belief or magical thinking. I can't let that slide or rationalism as we know it might grind to a halt.

CLUELESS BELIEVER: Huh? Atheism is a fundamentalist religion.

DAA: My kind are so intellectually superior to your kind, it scares me. Let me list all the reasons why you are a moron and why you probably believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

CB: You can't prove God doesn't exist.

DAA: I have to go and write angry e-mails to the History Channel about their latest Christianity show, and e-mail James Randi to let him know I e-mailed the History Channel. I will let my minions take over eviscerating your pathetic theistic arguments.

CB: Why are you guys so angry/vague talk about God, spirit, etc.

DAA: [More of the same]

CB: [More of the same]

THE REST OF US: Give it a rest, will you people? Can we please get back to George Carlin/clitoral circumcision/Barack Obama? PLEASE?

Aaaaaaaand eventually we give up and abandon the thread while you mental giants duke it out. Yawn. Please spare us this time, OK?

I would add that for kids 14 and up (especially bright ones), the DVD set of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" is an incredible experience. Yes, the FX are badly dated by the series' 1980 pedigree, but the wonder is still there, as is the late, great Carl's expressiveness and humanity. I still treasure this series.