Editor’s Note: This story is part of the April Fools’ issue and is not to be taken seriously…. Editor’s Note: This story is part of the April Fools’ issue and is not to be taken seriously.

Joseph Jojenevic has got a fever, and it can be cured by neither cowbell nor more basketball.

The 27-year-old senior recently learned that what he thought were run-of-the-mill symptoms of “March Madness,” are actually the painful and deadly if untreated signs of Syphillis.

“It started about two weeks ago when I began feeling this intense burning all the time,” Jojenevic said. “But, you know, you gotta support the team. So I kept on going.”

Jojenevic’s current doctor describes a previous diagnosis by the now-discredited Dr. Irvington Washington IV, as “woefully idiotic” and “incomprehensibly incorrect.”

“The fact that he could see this patient and think nothing was wrong … he’s an idiot,” Dr. Benjamin Benjamins, M.D., Ph.D., B.L.T., said.

Jojenevic recalls that about a week and a half ago, he developed a weird skin condition.

“I thought it was my body paint just not washing off enough,” he said. “When I realized that I had never painted myself that shade of green, however, I got freaked.”

He then visited Washington, who initially convinced him that it was in fact March Madness — a relatively harmless, non-clinical condition experienced by basketball fans across the world.

March Madness often results in watching television a lot and wagering foolishly. Syphilis, by contrast often results in sores and can even lead to insanity.

Jojenevic is currently recovering in a hospital and receiving the proper treatment.

“There’s a lesson to be learned from all of this,” he said via e-mail. “Don’t bet on the underdogs.”