being ill

I thought a broken arm or leg would prevent you from ever becoming an astronaut because the bone would come apart during weightlessness.

John G

I couldn't understand how the medicine used to know where in your body was sore. How did it know whether you had a toothache or a tummy ache? I thought my mum must give it directions as she poured it onto the spoon.

Mollycat

When I was 5 years old, I was sick with chicken pox for several days before something very tragic happened . . . I was getting ready for my bath when I found that I was actually sprouting feathers!!! I was absolutely convinced that I was turning into a chicken. My mother did her best to explain to me that it was simply a feather from my feather pillow stuck to one of the chicken pox sores, but for the longest time I would argue with her.

Tim

When I was little, I believed that four little people lived in my stomach - one green, one red, one blue, and one yellow. Their job was to reconstruct all the food that I swallowed, and stack it up for digestion. (that's why the corn kernels came out whole - gross, I know.)

If I ate too much in one day, the stack would reach up into my throat and I would throw up.

(these little people were smaller versions of the same colored people who lived under my bed - for many years I couldn't allow a limb to dangle off the edge of my bed or the little people would grab it and pull me under.)

odd creativity girl

When I was a little kid I thought that if you gave somebody your cold you would no longer be sick. So when I had a cold I would kiss people and then give them two short breaths in their faces to give them my cold. Nice kid. 

Rocketeer 

During the late 50's, as I began to watch T.V. and learn about reading, I saw advertisements referring to the dangers of "T.B."- I can recall thinking it couldn't be all THAT bad, since I was watching one, and the message was portrayed on one-quite a while passed before I had a clue about the difference between tuberculosis and television- as to the question of which is more dangerous, societally speaking, who can say?

GRW

My brother once told me that with German measles you broke out in swastikas, not red spots. I believed it until I did catch German measles

Steve

When I was young I went to my father and asked him, if you had to take an Asprin for say a Head Ache, Leg Ache or Tummy Pain, how did it always know exactly where to go to stop the pain

He told me that I just had to tell it before i took it, that i did and guess what, it works !!

Damian Havlin

When I has a heavy cold, my mum told me that the stuff I was blowing out my nose was called "cattarh". Somehow I got this confused with "guitar" and was convinced I had one inside me that was trying to get out.

Helen (UK)

When I was a a very young child, I was afraid of band-aids! I thought that they were chunks of flesh from other people who had gotten hurt.

Katy

I remember seeing a pamphlet in the library about V.D. and even though I couldn't read very well, the basic message was that anybody could catch it. So when my third grade teacher mentioned that wasn't feeling very well I asked her if she had V.D.

Anon

When I was 6, my dad went into hospital for gall stones. My 6-year-old hearing perceived this as "Gold" stones, and I spent the next 3 days telling my friends how we'd be rich when the doctor got these gold nuggets out of my dad.

outlander

When I was about 5 or 6 i thought whenever you saw someone on tv that was sick, you would get the illness too. After watching part of a soap opera were a girl had tuberculousis (sorry for the spelling) i started coughing and crying convinced i would die. When I didn't I thought i must be really lucky to survive all of these diseases. Um, yeah...i was pretty dumb.

Emily

my brother told me this....


that tampons were used to stop bloody noses...so one day i got a bloody nose and my mom came home and saw tampons strings hanging out of my nose ..the explain to me not to believe everything my brother tells me

Anon

When I was about 3 years old I had pneumonia and had to have x-rays taken. The doctor told me he was going to look at my bones but neglected to tell me how he was going to do it-so I was convinced that they were going to take my skin off.

Rain

I was in my first grade classroom and this kid on my bus route vomited all over the floor. His vomit was brown...and so was his house. My vomit had always been beige...and so was my house. It was then that I concluded: everyone's vomit matched the color of their house. I believed this to be a fact up until the point I ate too many green cookies on St. Patrick's day. I puked green and the theory was officially debunked.

athena

When I was very young, I thought that when you had laryngitis, it was actually Larry and Jitis, two little men who jumped down your throat and stole your voice. So when I came down with it, my mother told me that I had laryngitis, and I cried because I was upset over two men jumping down my throat and stealing my voice.

Lindsay

When I first heard of the bubonic plague, my mom told me it was the black plague, for about a year i thought she said "black play" and it was a playground with swings, slides, etc. that were painted black, and if you went on them, you died

Anon

For many years I believed something my sister told me. She told me that in Paris a long time ago they never put mentally ill people in mental hospitals but just threw them into the river. Hence the mentally ill were called "In Seine", and that is the origin of our word "insane"

Isaac

When I was a child, my mom would bring our cats into my bedroom to keep me company if I was sick. I believed that our cats must have some sort of magical medicine in their fur that would help me to get better. Why else would she bring them in every time I was ill?

sarah