“Maybe he’s having a conversion reaction,” chimed an emergency medicine resident. “Possible,” mused Gary, “maybe he struck out in the bottom of the ninth and his male pride made him a paraplegic to save face…but don’t call the psychiatrists in just yet.” The phrase “conversion reaction” is a euphemism for hysteria. The patient “converts” an emotional trauma, such as a failed marriage or, in Billy’s case, the shock of being nearly killed in an accident, into a physical complaint such as blindness or the paralysis of an arm or a leg. Although the symptom has no organic cause, the patient isn’t
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