Can a Spoonful of Sugar Really Help the Medicine Go Down?

by Belinda Munoz on February 8, 2010

sugarThis past week was anything but fun.  Or sweet.  The constant but cacophonous coughing by the little guy and myself, likely passing infectious bacteria back and forth, did nothing to instill a playful mood in my generally happy household.

It all started one night during a trip to the urgent care doctor.  She was tall, dressed hip, looked about my age and had an air of competence.  She examined my little guy as he sat in the clinic; shirtless, small and scared.  She asked him how he’s feeling.  He answered in between coughing fits and rapid breathing.

After a few days of questions about what’s wrong with him and pondering the what-ifs regarding his health and my ineptness as a parent, we went home that night, relieved that he had a diagnosis.

“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…” so Mary Poppins croons convincingly in the movie.  Except, my little guy wasn’t convinced.  As big as his crush is on Julie Andrews who plays Mary Poppins, he summoned every ounce of energy to thwart all attempts to get the gooey, bubblegummy, pink, syrupy medicine down his throat.

It didn’t help that the urgent care doc misdiagnosed him.

After a couple more days, a seasoned pediatrician, a triple-digit co-pay, a chest x-ray, several syringes and numerous bottles and packages of medication, homeopathic and otherwise, he started getting better.  Whew.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

Was I angry about the false diagnosis?  Yes.  Sure, I make mistakes, too, just like urgent care doc.  But, my son was actually in a much worse condition than the initial diagnosis.  Losing two days of his life to fevers and false and unscientific assumptions was a bitter pill to swallow and didn’t make mommy happy.  Not that my happiness should factor in to any licensed physician’s diagnosis of any patient.

I could be missing an opportunity to right the wrong here.  I could track down urgent care doc and tell her about her false diagnosis, but I don’t really want to.  It was one mistake.  Easy enough to forgive.

One could argue that this would make me a bad parent.  For the sake of other parents’ children, I should say something.  But what could I say to her?  Should I, not having gone to medical school, tell her how to do her job?  And would confronting her be more of a release for me than an actual helpful move to prevent any future misdiagnosis?

SPOONFULS OF SWEET STUFF NOTWITHSTANDING

There are many instances in life when, no matter how many spoonfuls of sugar there are, the medicine just won’t go down, so to speak.  I can think of a thousand scenarios that would apply.  Perhaps you can, too.  Some scenarios we face, or are shielded from, or are in denial of daily, yes, some of those apply.  For one, the curious lack of public health care, not just for children but for human beings of all ages, leaves boatloads of putrid medicine unswallowed.

I could let this fact consume me, as it sometimes does in my down days.

But I won’t.  Not this time anyway.  Because the way I see it, I’m just one person.

And in my own little world, sweet substance or not, the questions about motherhood, about life, never seem to go away.  The what-ifs, at least in my mind, are here to stay.  My ineptness in one area or another shifts but doesn’t really go away.

So, rather than sucking up the bitterness that no spoonfuls of saccharin can mask, I’d much rather drink in the fun, the joy, the love.  Because, as I surmised recently, life is good.  And, because if I’m not having any fun, I’m probably missing the honest-to-goodness sweetness of the big picture.

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Do you discuss your health with people other than your own doctor or healer?  If so, do you take medicine when you need to or do you wait for the symptoms to pass?  Have you ever had to deal with a false diagnosis?  Do you trust your doctor or healer?

Image by kaibara87

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Rules, Penicillin, and Why Life Is Good

by Belinda Munoz on February 4, 2010

life is good

We’re a complicated lot, you, me and everyone else like us, aren’t we?  I mean, we’re plagued with paradoxes collectively and individually.  Our hearts and minds often disagree which, with little help from outside forces, bring us sometimes self-imposed stress and other times unjustified, unwarranted worry.  Riddled with wants and needs, our spirits, with their unlimited capacity for greatness, at times soar so high only to skydive and sputter; fallen, flightless, all but lifeless for who knows how long.

If any of this proves anything at all, it’s that we’re not a boring bunch.  Are you with me?

~

Case in point, the other day, I was speaking with my boss and mentor about the seeming dearth of inspiration in politics today, politics being a large part of my day job.  We agreed to focus more on our foundation work and less on political affairs.  Fine.

And then, a mere hour later, we meet a fantastic woman who makes us salivate for a seat in the Senate.  She’s a sixty-five year old litigating grandma, possessing the energy of a twenty-five year old spinning instructor, coiffed with a spunky ‘do and endearing us with a charismatic personality.  On paper, she’s scary intimidating with an impressive list of professional and personal victories.  In person, she’s warm and smiley in a genuine way, with a comedic sensibility that could give Ellen DeGeneres a run for her money.  So, we’re sold.  We are getting involved in her life and there’s not a thing she can do to stop us.

I’m guessing you’ve done something similar: created a rule for yourself only to break it later.

We create rules only to break them. Why?  Because we outgrow these rules.  They fit us like a three-year old stuffed in a newborn onesie.

We create rules only to break them, and by breaking them, we free ourselves so that our hearts and minds align and our spirits soar.

Life is good.

~

We have immense powers but we often don’t know it.

Sure, sometimes, we stumble.

Take the accidental discovery of the penicillin.  Alexander Fleming must’ve badly needed a break.  This Scottish biologist and Nobel Prize winner neglected to tidy up his laboratory, perhaps a bad habit, perhaps in haste as it was right before leaving for vacation.  When he returned to his laboratory, one of his cultures was contaminated with a fungus that released a substance he later called penicillin.

Sure, sometimes, we stumble.  But sometimes, we stumble upon our greatness.

I give extra special thanks to the great Fleming’s enduring legacy.  Without that accident, would penicillin be in antibiotics today?  Are there thriving lives around now that would not have been otherwise?  And on a more personal level, what would cure my son’s bacterial pneumonia now without Fleming’s genius genus?

Life is good.

~

Life is good.  And yes, we are a complicated lot, you, me and everyone else like us.  But that doesn’t deny that life is good.

Life is good even when we don’t think so.  Tormented teens.

Life is good even when it seems bad.  Haitians.  Congolese women.  The list goes on…

Life is good even when we simplify the complex and complicate the simple.

Life is good even when we collect clutter and then voluntarily undergo a painful process of decluttering — an existential letting go of extraneous things in our homes, our minds, our hearts our souls.

There are a zillion reasons  why life is good.

Here’s one:

As long as there is a life, there is a choice to live a life that’s good.  Without life, there is no choice.  But, without choice, it’s not much of a life and living a life without choice is not really living. Don’t you think so, too?

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Do you think that life is inherently good?

Do you think that we should be free to make mistakes in life?

Do you value being able to choose what you eat, wear, watch?

Do you think that some or any of our choices should be taken away?

If you’re in the U.S., have you been following the controversy regarding the ad that may be airing on Superbowl Sunday?  If so, do you think there’s ever any hope of transcending this kind of, what I think is tunnel-vision thinking, on both sides, so that we may perhaps see a bigger vision?  If you’re unaware about this controversy but would like to know more, by all means, please feel free to tweet me or send me an e-mail at bvmthehalfwaypoint @ gmail dot com.

Image by pamhule

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Lessons Learned from the Grammys

by Belinda MunozFebruary 1, 2010

I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either. ~ Jack Benny
Seeing all the hoopla surrounding last night’s Grammy Awards reminded me that, a year ago, I was there.  Dear husband produced an album that was nominated for an award.  I was thrilled for him when the news came [...]

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Is Your Independence Pure Hype?

by Belinda MunozJanuary 28, 2010

Independence. It seems the ultimate goal of parents is to guide their children toward independence.  Babies, helpless creatures that they are who never remain babies long enough, exhibit their capacity for independence as soon as their bones and muscles become strong enough to crawl.  Valiantly venturing away from where they are to where they can [...]

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Sunny Thoughts from Rainy Day Haiku

by Belinda MunozJanuary 25, 2010

Years ago, my husband, a constant source of inspiration for me, put together a collaborative album called Twenty Haiku, a multimedia project involving twenty pieces of original haiku, accompanied by original 2D art and seconds-long, one-instrument music expressed on the spot at the time of recording.  It was a critical success.  I think of this [...]

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Truth or Dare?

by Belinda MunozJanuary 21, 2010

Ugh.  I cower at the title of this post.  I’m not a truth or dare kind of gal and have very little experience with the game.  Truthfully, I’d rather put on a pair of wet socks, have sticky jam hands squeeze my cheeks, plop between a cold wall and a big sneezing man on a [...]

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Doors, Knocks, Locks and Keys, Figuratively

by Belinda MunozJanuary 18, 2010

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
Years ago, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Jackson Browne at a dear friend’s wedding dinner.  Jackson is a well-known singer-songwriter of hits such as “The Pretender”, “Running on Empty”, “Doctor My Eyes”.  I didn’t grow up listening to [...]

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Helping Haiti

by Belinda MunozJanuary 14, 2010

I had several ideas for this post but all of them kept pulling me back to Haiti.
News of the devastation in Haiti is a struggle to hear.  A country already one of the poorest, flattened even more.  Generation after generation.   Fraught with abject poverty, political unrest and infectious diseases.  Seemingly unable to catch a break.
I [...]

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101 Things Worth More than Your Bank Account

by Belinda MunozJanuary 11, 2010

A recent survey conducted by Reader’s Digest indicates that money is the main source of stress in most countries.  This comes as no surprise in light of the current fragile economy and the steady unemployment rate in the U.S. of 10% as of last month.
Add to this recent reports of brand new and unsold garments [...]

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Simple Things That Add Meaning to Everyday

by Belinda MunozJanuary 6, 2010

One misnomer that has always bothered me is when the word “everyday” is used synonymously with “ordinary”.  By definition, “everyday” connotes familiarity which connotes ordinariness.  OK, I get it.
But for me, I like to view everyday with excitement.  Everyday is a renewed license to live by our own design; free to share our gifts with [...]

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