Marfan syndrome humor

You might have Marfan syndrome in the family if...

From Jackie Barber, Toronto
(With all due respect to Jeff Foxworthy and his "redneck" jokes...)

• your kid's feet hang over the end of the crib
• your feet hang over the end of the bed, any bed
• you save a bunch of money on headboards and footboards
• to get a snapshot of your family, the photographer has to stand across the street
• your family snapshot looks like the Toronto skyline, with the CN Tower wearing a hat
• you and your ten-year-old go to the same store to buy shoes
• you have no trouble deciding which shoes to buy because there is only one pair in the store that fits
• the only shoes that fit are black
• your kid grew three inches last month
• the local charities love the almost-new kid's clothes you bring them four or five times a year
• your kid is offered a basketball scholarship while still in Kindergarten
• when you buy a car the most important consideration is "Will it fit?"
• when looking for a new house, your first question is, "How high are the door frames?"
• your second question is, "How high are the ceilings?"
• if you stand sideways in the shower, you don't get wet
• in your personal, loose-leaf phonebook, the thickest section is "D" (for doctor)
• your vision is so bad that in the morning you need your glasses to find breakfast
• you are the only adult in the orthodontist's waiting room
• you know what a cardiologist does
• your cardiologist is number 3 on your speed dial
• you know that Beta Blockers have nothing to do with football
• you can use words like "genome" and "fibrillin" like you know what they mean
• loose joints are not something that you "never inhaled"
• your joints are so flexible that you assume the full lotus position without meaning to
• you had to quit taking yoga because even the instructor was beginning to resent your flexibility
• when getting dressed in the morning your first concern is "Which joint braces will I wear today?"
• you know that "Aneurysm" is not the name of a trendy new restaurant
• you know that an aortic valve is not part of a car engine
• you have more plastic in your body than in your wallet
• ever since you had that pig valve implant, you think of pork chops as "family"
• having a pig valve makes eating pork feel like cannibalism
• now that you have a pig valve implant, your doctor's stethoscope picks up more "squeals" and "oinks"