Mishaps and a Misdiagnosis

Something just hit me: it's been a bad week for the medical field at this point. In the last few days, we've been hit with some damning pieces of news involving doctors and physicians basically failing their patients. I've heard stories about misdiagnoses and all else for a long time, but these last two stories... oh my goodness.

So let's get down to it, shall we?

First, there's Jalen Hurts, the Super Bowl LIX winning QB from the Philadelphia Eagles. Days prior to the Eagles' Week Six home matchup against the Carolina Panthers, the news broke that Hurts would be out for that game due to a blood clot. Yikes! Here's the thing. It came out that Hurts had what was described as a "superficial blood clot," and that he had it in his calf since Saturday, October 11--the day before Hurts took the field against the Jaguars in London. Alarm bells went off with that news.

Let me see if we all had this right. The Eagles knew that Hurts had this clot in him, and their medical staff looked at it and deemed Hurts OK to play?! Even worse, they told him that sleep would make it worse, so Hurts--on no sleep--was on a cross-country flight from Philadelphia to London, and played the entirety of that game, which the Eagles lost. Oh, and that blood clot? It's now multiple clots, and they're in both lungs! Everyone... everyone on that damn medical staff needs to be fired, but the NFL just publicly announced that the Eagles are not responsible for what happened with Hurts. Good God.

But that's not the only misstep from the medical field this week.

We all know who this awesome woman is: Christina Applegate. She's done it all in her career. Her greatest hit remains her 11 seasons as Kelly Bundy on Married... With Children, and she's gone on to so much during and after that run. The original Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, the Anchorman movies, the live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks films, Bad Moms, and the Netflix series Dead to Me. It was during Applegate's time on that show (which also co-starred Linda Cardellini, who can be seen as horror villainess Pamela Voorhees in Crystal Lake) that the diagnosis hit. Multiple sclerosis.

MS has hit a lot of known names, more recently actresses Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Selma Blair. Legendary comedian Richard Pryor battled MS for the last 19 years of his life, and iconic actress Teri Garr was diagnosed with MS in 2002 and lived on for 22 years until her passing in 2024. Applegate received her MS diagnosis in 2021, and she's been retired ever since Dead to Me's run ended in 2022. For at least five years, Applegate lived with the belief that she had MS.

And on October 20, 2026, Applegate was told that she never had it. It was a misdiagnosis. Holy Toledo! So Applegate never had MS, but she's still ailing. So what is her exact health issue?!

It's frightening that medical professionals have been messing up quite a bit lately, but this doesn't deter my trust in the medical field. It's just a sad state of affairs that this keeps happening. I hope that Jalen Hurts makes it through this; I've heard too many stories about blood clots, and they're all scary, but I hope Hurts makes it. And regarding Christina Applegate, I truly hope she gets the answers she needs regarding her health and what's ailing her. Everyone deserves all of the facts regarding what exactly is plaguing them. Just saying what one doesn't have when they are still in ill health isn't enough. More needs to be done.