This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Cidolfas - Unless this falls into another trope (still new to this)... isn't this expanded to the fact that there simply are no minor diseases in most media? Characters almost never have minor colds or coughs. As soon as somebody coughs, it's an immediate clue that they have some completely awful disease. Examples fail me at the moment. ...Never mind, I missed Perfect Health. Although I think these two are quite intertwined.
Wolfechu Oddly, I've seen this happen in real life, when I worked in a hospital. A man who strolled in for a routine ultrasound scan was told he had terminal liver cancer, and died within three days. I still think the shock of being told just completely knocked the life out of him; he actually looked visibly iller within hours.
