Alone in Berlin
Alone in Berlin
That sterile hotel room smelled of bleach and dread. Outside, rain lashed against the window like tiny fists while my own knuckles whitened around the phone. Just an hour earlier, I'd been laughing over schnitzel with clients; now a vise tightened around my ribs with each breath. WebMD Symptom Checker glowed on my screen – not as some detached diagnostic tool, but as the only witness to my trembling fingers tracing "chest pressure" and "sudden dizziness." Every tap echoed in the silence. Cardiac event? Panic attack? Acid reflux from that damn strudel? The app parsed my desperation with eerie calm, its algorithm cross-referencing my inputs against millions of medical records in real-time. I remember scoffing at its suggestion of "anxiety" until it highlighted how stress hormones mimic heart attack symptoms during transatlantic flights. But then – the gut punch – that crimson "Seek Emergency Care Immediately" banner flashing when I added "jaw discomfort." In that moment, I hated its clinical precision even as I frantically dialed 112. Later, in a German ER smelling of antiseptic and humiliation, the cardiologist's words burned: "Your WebMD reading was correct about the indigestion... but never ignore jaw pain." The app had been simultaneously my lifeline and my tormentor, its machine learning coldly brilliant yet incapable of softening terror with a human touch. Now I keep it on my home screen like a loaded gun – profoundly grateful for its vast medical ontology databases, yet cursing how its probability percentages turn minor twinges into existential crises. Sometimes at 3 AM, I still feel that Berlin panic rise in my throat and open it just to watch the interface load, wondering if tonight it'll be savior or executioner.
Keywords:WebMD Symptom Checker,news,chest pressure,medical algorithms,health anxiety
