Dec 22 2009
Medical Fun with Christmas Carols
Warning: If you are offended by humor that depends on psychiatric and medical diagnoses, read no further.
Disclaimer: Before anyone complains (and in this age of exaggerated political correctness, someone surely will), let me make it clear that I mean no disrespect to people suffering from the illnesses mentioned below. I have the greatest empathy for sick people, and I have encountered several of these conditions in my own family and have actually experienced four of them myself. Humor about them doesn’t offend me, and I hope it will not offend you. Also, my mention of Christmas and Hanukkah songs is not intended to endorse any religious belief.
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After a year of serious talk about mostly discouraging things, I thought it was time for a totally frivolous post to cheer us up with a little holiday humor. A friend sent me a list of “Christmas Carols for the Psych Ward.” I thought they were funny, and I’ve copied the best of them below. I’ve added a few of my own for other medical diagnoses, and then I added several about complementary and alternative medicine.
Christmas Carols for the Psych Ward
SCHIZOPHRENIA: Do You Hear What I Hear?
MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER: We Three Kings Disoriented Are
AMNESIA: I Don’t Know if I’ll be Home for Christmas
NARCISSISTIC: Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me
MANIC: Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and….
PARANOID: Santa Claus is Coming to Get Me
OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER: Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells…
AUTISTIC: Jingle Bell Rock and Rock and Rock and Rock …
SENILE DEMENTIA: Walking in a Winter Wonderland Miles From My House In My Slippers and Robe
Christmas Carols for Other Medical Conditions
Argyria: Silver Balls
Mumps: The Chipmunk Song
Depression: Blue Christmas.
Rosacea: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Rhinophyma patient
Hypothyroidism: Baby It’s Cold Outside (and Inside too)
Obesity: We want some figgy pudding. (from We Wish You a Merry Christmas)
Scotomas (defects in visual field): O Holey Night
Edentulous: All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth (along with the rest of them).
Alcoholic: Here We Come A-Wassailing
Deaf: Silent Night
Tinnitus: Jingle Bells
Narcolepsy: Shepherds! Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep
Christmas Carols for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Chiropractors: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (and we can fix the resulting subluxations).
Acupuncture: The Twelve Acupoints of Christmas
Homeopathy: Kissin’ By The Mistletoe [Viscum album, one drop of mistletoe extract diluted to 30C and deposited on a sugar pill. Shaken, not stirred.].
Customer for penis enlargement products: I Have a Little Dreidel
Probiotics: The Friendly Beasts
Colon cleansing: Come, All Ye Feces-full
Herbalists: “Greens/Leaves”
Faith healers: Rise Up (out of your wheelchairs) Shepherds and Follow
TCM practitioners: From East to West
CAM believers responding to SBM: You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
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Playing with song titles can be great fun. Think up some of your own and post them in the comments section. It makes a great holiday pastime or party game.
Best Wishes for Whatever You Celebrate: Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Newton’s Birthday and Winter Solstice to All!
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21 Responses to “Medical Fun with Christmas Carols”
Okay, doctors do have a weird sense of humor. But it jogged a memory…
This weekend I listened to the Science Friday podcast, which included a long article with the psychiatrist who wrote a book on working weekends at Bellevue’s psych ward. In the interview she mentioned some of the interesting things she heard while working with these patients, including the interesting use of words in observations, which she described as poetry.
I was reminded of a time while a college student when on the bus I listened to the conversation of two people, one who was a disgruntled young man, and the other who was an older man who may have either been really nice, or falling into a delusional state. The young man would complain about how terrible life was, only to be followed by the older man saying “The world is beautiful, the sun is coming up, look at the colors, people are beautiful!”… it was very surreal.
Agoraphobic: All I Want for Christmas is to stay Home for The Holidays.
Claus-trophobia. (Can’t think of a song, hope the condition on its own will suffice.)
And for the substance abuse clinic-
I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas
Attention Deficit Disorder: Silent night, Holy…. oooh look at the kitten….
Paranoid —Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder —Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle,Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells….just wait, I have to say it 20 more times before we can move on to the next stanza.
I’ll poke fun at myself. I have a lisp and use to sing the following….
‘We wisth you a Merry Christhmasth, We wisth you a Merry Christhmasth…
(and my favorite day from ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’…)
“On the Stheventh Day of Christhmasth…Stheven Swansth A’ Sthwimming”
I’ll throw in my two conditions–
Asperger’s syndrome: “The 1100 Days of Christmas”
Bipolar disorder: “Have a Holly Jolly Blue Christmas”
Can’t resist joining in the fun.
Alzheimer’s: “I Wonder as I Wander”
Seasonal Affective Disorder: “In the Bleak Midwinter”
Substance Abuse: “Angels We Have Heard While High”
Pyromania: “Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella”
Obesity: “I Want a Hippopotamus (to eat) for Christmas”
Hypersexuality: “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, and Uncle Sam, and Elvis, and Every Other Man She Ever Met”
perky_skeptic, that is by no means an asperger trait.
Aspergers: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. I don’t get it. How can he be an apple tree?
*Sigh* I know you’re trying to be funny and all, but could we please stop confusing obesity with binge eating disorder? I understand that you’re trying to have a little bit of light-hearted, politically incorrect fun, but look at the harm that it does.
JerryM, we could be really Aspergery and argue all night about the meaning and precise delineation of the condition while the other carolers drink all the eggnog?
And for our dear friend Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA):
Oh Come All Ye Faith Healers
For the dyslexics: Satan Claus is Coming to Town.
I was going to say The First Neol…Nole…Noel but I can’t remember what the rule about when two vowels go walking.
OK Henchminion:
We’ll substitute “Prader-Willi” for all the uses of “obesity” but didn’t you read the disclaimer?
[...] Medical fun with Christmas carols [...]
Perky Skeptic; you mean nobody else is interested in a detailed explanation about the impossibilities of jesus being an apple tree?
Hi Skepchick,
I read the disclaimer, but I don’t think humour or Christmas are good reasons to depart from scientific thinking. Obesity is a risk factor, not a disease in and of itself. Calorie deprivation has been found time and again to produce extremely limited results as a treatment. In fact, as the blog I linked to above shows, I think it’s become one of those ridiculous universal panaceae. People are getting hurt and a certain part of the mainstream medical community is complicit in that damage.
Sorry Henchminion, your information is erroneous. Obesity is a disease. According to the CDC, obesity is defined as a body mass index of 30 or higher. According to the NIDDK, it can also be an abnormally high percentage of body fat. Obesity has its own ICD-9 codes. No, I don’t think obesity is funny at all; it is a health problem in and of itself, it is a public health disaster, and it is a risk factor for countless other diagnoses. But this post wasn’t specifically about obesity or any other single diagnosis. It was about having a good belly laugh, a Santa-sized “Ho Ho Ho!”
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and yours.
@ provaxmom
Your OCD Jingle bells is reminiscent of my toddler’s version. Love it!
In that case, according to the CDC’s definition, about half of the athletes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship are “diseased”. I think it’s one of those cases where there’s a blurry line between pathology and natural human variation. I mean, maleness could be considered a disease and a disaster. It also takes five years off your life expectancy, after all. From the perspective of an Australian, being American could be a disease too. That also takes five years off your life.
What worries me is that obesity is routinely conflated with overeating and discussions on the subject always seem to end up loaded with moral outrage. Obese people are routinely instructed to repeat variations of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, even though it’s been pretty thoroughly discredited as a treatment. I just wish that people could have an actual science-based discussion on the subject once in awhile.
Henchminion said “I just wish that people could have an actual science-based discussion on the subject once in awhile.”
We did: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=181
Obesity is conflated with over-eating because if you don’t eat more calories than you burn you can’t become obese. And there is only one way to lose weight; the devil is in the details.