A coworker of mine is a hypochondriac… never seen anyone like her. Ghastly.
Her latest claim for absene has been headaches – she says she had a CAT scan and an MRI – which indicated a mysterious “shadow” on her brain. Turns out, she has harmless (for now) calcium deposits on her frontal lobe.
Riiiiggght.
We (the office) know she’s full of shit – but only because she screwed up other parts of her story. Normally, she’s quite realistic, but this sounds utterly made-up.
Is it even remotely possible to get calcium deposits on the brain (and if so, what would the symptoms/treatments be), or is little missy getting lazy with her fake-illness research?
“Frontal lobe” sounds suspicious, but a google search found this on the first hit:
There’s nothing suspicious or impossible about frontal lobe calcification. Do a Google search for “frontal lobe” calcification.
It was the combination of “frontal lobe” and “harmless” that I thought was suspicious, since most of the links I looked at indicated that it was a fairly serious problem. Then again, I’m an engineer not a doctor, so go read the links and judge for yourself because I’m obviously not an expert.
Vertiginous Annie,
The story of your co-worker is hauntingly similar to what happened to my mother. She had excruciating headaches and the first CT scan showed calcifications in the frontal lobes of her brain. Turns out my mother has Oligodendroglioma. In short, she has a terminal brain tumor.
The lesion my mother had also had signifigant effects on her behavior, not caring about work, insatiable appetite, etc.
THIMN
THIMN:
I am very sorry to hear about you mother. Please accept my condolences.
Lest I sound like a heartless bitch - my coworker does not have this condition. She lies, and she was caught in them.
I was curious about her excuse, as it sounded odd to me. Now that I know it is a truly devastating disease (one which should hardly be used as an excuse to go shopping), I even even more contempt for her. But that is a thread for the pit…