Diary of a Red Man: The Ginger Red Man

Sitting in the back of a Bangkok taxi, my little daughter decides to entertain me with her latest sing-song.

“Run, run, run as fast as you can;
You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!”

She then looks at me and says, “Daddy, you are the Ginger Red Man!”
That girl needs an agent. She looks pleased with her little pun and launches into a reprise:

“Run, run, run as fast as you can;
You can't catch me, I'm the Ginger Red Man!”

She laughs and gives me a big hug, then looks down at my exfoliating zombie hand, “I like red!” She could charm the skin off a snake.

Now, I knew that this was originally a long song but, try as I might, was unable to dredge up such an esoteric and banal memory. After a bit of strenuous research, here is a modern adaptation of the story.

Diary of a Red Man: Better Red Than Dead

Never before have I seen a doctor so visibly shocked. It was almost cartoon perfect, with hands raised in horror, eyes bursting out of their sockets and only pure professional decorum restrained him from emitting a shriek. “You have to be admitted to hospital... right now!” That was the start of the end of my life.

I didn’t even have time to gloat over my correct internet-driven self-diagnosis; had to satisfy myself in private later. Just two days prior to this, another dermatologist uncharacteristically admitted to being clueless as to my condition. Yet here was a doctor pushing me onto the critical list. If a misdiagnosis can be fatal, the advantage of a non-diagnosis is the freedom to seek another opinion. Especially when it appears that erythroderma can be fatal.