Human Diseases with Elephant References

Hey, you don’t want to rattle around in my head and figure out how I come up with these posts. It’s not a neat process. It’s often times random and chaotic, sticky and twisted. How the hell I came up with a post on diseases having to do with elephant references, I can’t say. It was a journey that started out looking for some term in my work (typing up medical reports) and ended up getting distracted by a picture of an elephant that got me thinking about medical conditions that involve the elephant as reference. These diseases are as horrible as you can imagine, as no one wants a disease like an elephant, a gazelle maybe, but not a pachyderm.

Elephantiasis: The word elephantiasis is a vivid and accurate term for the syndrome it describes: the gross (visible) enlargement of the arms, legs, or genitals to elephantoid size.



“Elephant Man” Disease: A condition called neurofibromatosis/Proteus syndrome in which large tumors begin to grow on the body.



Tumors:


I think if I were to have an elephant trait, I'll stick with their love of water....

Comments

  1. I had to stop watching that last video. Too horrible! :(

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  2. I'm surprised the first video didn't stop you cold in your tracks. :-)

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  3. I have to admit; I didn't watch the videos. I remember seeing a movie years ago (can't remember the name) about a boy with the disease. I remember Cher was in it; and I suppose I could Google it; but I am WAY behind, so I'll leave that to someone else.

    I remember the movie reduced me to tears. Not only because of the horribly disfiguring disease; but by how the child was treated by others.

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  4. Brenda;
    Yup. When I see these diseases, I usually get frustrated there's nothing we can do about them yet, though I hold out hope with stem cell research. It's hard enough to get through life whether you have tons of freckles or shrunken limbs or any other variation of "oddity." It amazes me what we consider to be baseline and then pick on anything that isn't in that baseline, but is there a human who is at baseline? I hate to see them suffer physically and emotionally. Not that I can understand what they go through, but I was born with two earlobes on the left side. As a child, I was teased constantly about it. I was so ashamed. I wore my hair long to cover it up. The funny thing is that actually made me realize I'm different and I was glad. Did I want to be like the people who had perfect earlobes? They're the ones picking on me. So, when I went into modeling, I pierced the second earlobe and showed it off in my modeling shots. In the early 80s they weren't too into showing defects and before a pageant I ended up having plastic surgery on it. I still have a double earlobe, but it is much smaller now than it was. I wish I hadn't let them talk me into it. It really was something I came to think of as my badge of honor that set me apart from the flock.

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  5. Yay, you!!

    I agree with you wholeheartedly on the "baseline" issue. There is no baseline. I can't imagine why anyone would even think there should be; even if you're not born with an anomaly, you can still be picked on and made fun of simply because you're "different." Could be clothing, friends, anything; and children are very perceptive at homing in on the insecurities of other children.

    Show your double lobes; and be proud of 'em!

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