Local resident and widely acknowledged hypochondriac Ryan Beckman was tragically self-diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease last Wednesday after failing to recall what side of his car the gas cap was on as he pulled up to his local BP station.
“It was terrible,” recalled Beckman. “One second I was cruising at ten and two day dreaming about which chip flavor to buy, and the next I was thrust into an inescapable uncertainty over whether to position the left, or right, side of my car next to the pump.” Beckman explained that before he even exited the car, he had already placed calls to his wife and four other close relatives to tell them about the diagnosis.
“Finding out that the love of your life has Alzheimer’s is difficult, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected,” said Beckman’s wife, Mary. “For years I’ve kept telling him how to please me in bed, but for some reason he can never remember how when the time comes.”
Despite the Beckmans’ personal tragedy, not everyone is upset about the self-discovery. Beckman’s personal physician, Dr. Ray Arman, treated Beckman for a severe panic attack upon arrival, who was last seen sleeping with the help of heavy sedatives.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t an uncommon occurrence,” said Dr. Arman. “Last week he found a bug bite behind his ear, believed it was a malignant tumor, and demanded we perform an MRI and CAT scan.”
Hospital representatives maintained that Beckman was well within his rights to request testing until he felt confident his diagnosis was correct, but Dr. Arman claimed that the hospital continues to indulge Beckman’s behavior because he’s their “primary source of income.”
“I don’t know where this kid gets his health insurance,” Arman said. “But if it continues to pay for my vacations to Barbados then I’ll keep giving him sugar pills for lupus and IVs of water for chemo.”
Beckman could not be reached for comment at press time but was said to have last been seen at Starbucks looking up the symptoms of MRSA on WebMD after receiving a paper cut.
Originally published: Dec 2013
