Lethal Diagnosis: Difference between revisions

Being diagnosed with an illness is a surefire method for making it suddenly become much worse. Characters who have suffered one or two mild symptoms -- suchsymptoms—such as a [[Incurable Cough of Death|cough]], fatigue, moments of disorientation, etc. -- will visit a doctor or hospital and be told they have some kind of tragic disease, then over the next couple of weeks or sometimes even days, they'll turn into feeble, hacking wrecks who ramble meaninglessly to themselves all day.

* In the movie ''[[Brazil (Filmfilm)|Brazil]]'', our first view of Mrs. Terrain has her with a few bandages due to a "complication" with treatment to make her look younger. Throughout the course of the movie her condition worsens despite her doctor's insistence that she'll soon be up and about, and in one of the dream sequences we see her coffin, which turns out to contain nothing but bones and [[Squick|something that looks unpleasantly like]] [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Aspic |aspic.]]

* Mark's dad in ''[[ER (TV)|ER]]''. And then, eventually, Mark himself, though in a much slower form.

* Joyce Summers in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', who went from mild headaches to violent dementia in just a few episodes.

* Exception: In the first few minutes of the new ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 (TV series)|the new ''Battlestar Galactica Reimagined'']]'' mini seriesminiseries president-to-be Laura Roslin is diagnosed with terminal cancer, but the character proceeds to play a major role in the following TV serial without all the stereotypical signs of disease (and, on the whole, survives a lot longer than most who befall TV illness).

* Every episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]''. Every time the team comes up with a theory, the patient's condition instantly escalates to point of unerring predictability.

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[GilligansGilligan's Island]]'' where everyone mistakes a harmless bug that landed on Gilligan for a bug with deadly venom. He shows all of the symptoms to everyone else, but there's a logical explanation: for example: Gilligan was just eating a bunch of bananas, so when Ginger offered him pie, he didn't want any. Everybody else thought this was a lack of appetite, one of the symptoms.

* [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]: Odo has been the carrier for the disease destroying his people for a long time without effect. Once this information is revealed, he's deteriorating rapidly within only a few episodes. This is handwaved in-verse with the explanation that the disease gains strength with increased use of shapeshifting and the excessive amount of shapeshifting Odo has had to do over a short space of time has massively escalated his condition. Still, it's only excessive shapeshifting by his standards and it wasn't like he didn't shapeshift prior to them... and it still affects him faster than it affects the rest of his people who shapeshift much more frequently on a long-term basis than he does.

* In the ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'' episode "A Case of Ed", Edd becomes convinced he has the rare (and presumably deadly) Lackadaisycathro Disease, and almost immediately becomes pallid and feverish.

* In one episode of ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'', Helga is bit by a monkey and notices some redness in the area. She looks up a book on archaic diseases and becomes convinced that she has contracted a terminal, monkey-borne disease. Other symptoms include sweaty hands (which she develops out of fear of death), irritability (practically her defining character trait), and loss of appetite (impending death tends to make one less apt to enjoy a meal).