A Post Dedicated to My Dad

This was featured in Thursday's Metro paper:

Love & the high cost of health care
My father wasn’t exactly the huggy type. I don’t remember him ever saying “I love you,” but I knew he cared because he gave me pills. Once when I was 10 and I couldn’t sleep he gave me half a yellow pill — my first Valium. No, he wasn’t a pusher, but a physician who liberally medicated his own family. Benadryl for hay fever, Zantac for gas, Lomotil for diarrhea (what Dad called “loose stools”) — a pill for every discomfort.

Looking back on my childhood, I realize that my father loved me in the way he knew how. A man of science, he nurtured with pills. And facts. During my adult life, when my mother was dying of cancer, he kept me updated about her CA count and white blood cell count and the status of her organs. Actually, I found this rather comforting. I had grown accustomed to Western Doctor Daddy love.

He’s now retired, but I still call Dad to diagnose this or that pain.
“Dad,” I asked him recently, alarmed at the cost of my health insurance, “why does health care cost so much?”
“Well, new treatments are getting more expensive.”“Like what?”
“New drugs. New technology.”

This made sense. Recently, I’d read in the newspaper about a “smart” new drug for cancer. It can extend your life, usually for about three months. Cost: $8,000 per month.My lefty friends argue that the real cause of rising health care costs is corporate greed. The drug companies and the insurance industry, they’re sticking it to us. Someone with Buddhist inclinations might argue that, ultimately, Americans are victims of corporate greed because we lack a spiritual center. Instead of meditating to detach from busy-brain, for example, we turn to Lunesta, which comes to kiss us with peaceful slumber. Our materialistic culture feeds on intolerance for discomfort, on terror of pain and fear of death, and the inexplicable void beyond. This spiritual impoverishment fuels the need for new treatments. But, as for me, I know what’s really at the root of skyrocketing health care costs. Those Doctor Daddies in the medical establishment, the researchers, all of those men (and women) of science, they are simply loving us as best they know how.
And as they say, love knows no bounds.

Mary Grover is a freelance writer living in New York.

Need a Roomate?

I'll admit it right now: I'm no philosopher. I'm not crazy smart, I don't sit around and contemplate the deep meaning of life (lets be honest, even if I had time to, I'd much rather watch Gilmore Girls, that's enough "meaning" for me), my point is, I don't always have mass amounts of advice to share, but here's what I do know:

When you enter in your last year of grad school and all your friends have moved away and you have a choice to move home and save money OR live by yourself and scrape by: SCRAPE BY!!
I love my parents, they are for terrific for moving me a grand total of 7 times in the 6 years I've been in college (don't try to do the math, I have and it just gives me a headache) and for letting me come back to save money my last year, BUT I have learned that there are worse things then being flat broke, such as:

1)Your mom calling you in to the living room to see something on tv. Your legs are sore from running and lifting and you wouldn't mind if you never got up ever again, however, it's your mom and SURELY she's calling you in to see something INCREDIBLE on tv: Turns out she just wants you to see Mario Lopez on "Dancing with the Stars" whom she describes as "cute as a bug"..... How do you explain to your mom that you've been watching Mario Lopez on tv since the late-80s and you really got over him the first time he wore those ugly collared shirts (buttoned all the way up) with black jeans and that if you never see him on another episode of the "Pyramid" Game show, You'll die happy?

2)Your Mom (I promise not all my stories are about the Mrs/Dr. Brown, she's really great, but..) coming in to wake you up early Saturday morning (your one day to sleep in) with a super-chipper voice singing "Good Morning , Good Morning , Good Morning It's time to rise and shine! Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning I hope you're feeling fine!" *sigh* there's no recovery from that

3) Your family asking you every time you walk out the door, "where ya going?" I'm sorry, I guess I didn't send out my minute-by-Minute play by play for you guys, It's exactly 5:03pm and I'm planning on walking out to my car to get by books..... Apparently me walking out the front door is something to get excited about.

4)Here's a serious one: you lose your indepence. No matter how much your family gives you your freedom, there is a reason people move out and go to college when they're 18. Barring a family emergency, you really shouldn't move home after you've moved out. It's not natural. And as much as I gripe about my parents, I know they have gripes as well. They're not used to me coming home at 1am or having to leave for the library at 9pm when they're going to bed.

Okay, sorry for the gripe session. Please share any wisdom you may have, because I am definitely in need of it.

Also, I have the Detroit Tigers winning it all. Now, I know I'm not good at predicting winners (see previous post) but they look good and I like the way Jim Leyland works. He's gutsy and smart and doesn't seem to care what anybody else thinks.

A Post for My Dad

EEK! I've only been at this blogging business less than a month and I'm falling behind.

My dad turned 59 this past week. I used to think that 50 was dinosaur-ish. Now both my parents are rapidly approaching 60. It's very surreal. My mom had me when my parents were 35, so I don't really remember them before their 40s. Which is kind of weird when you have those people whose parents had them when they were in their early 20s.

My Dad is a pediatrician. He has an absolute, God-given gift with children. I don't mean to be sappy, but it's really beautiful. You can take any crying baby and put it in his arms and the baby is instantly quiet. I'm not exaggerating here, I've seen it happen on multiple occasions.

Babies love his beard. They grab at it and love to feel the texture of it against their skin.

Sometimes I think he can talk to them. He can communicate with them in a way that transcends words. When I'm watching him hold a baby, making it laugh, calming it down, I know that is his calling. He's one of those people who can make a 4-year-old throwing a tantrum quiet down with JUST a look, faster than you can say "spanking". When I used to babysit and the kids would be running around like wild indians, I would get my dad on the phone and have him talk to them and they would be perfect for the rest of the night.

And if I ever have unruly children, I'm shipping them off to him.

I think my Dad is pretty cool.