Today, I Am Grateful

In a day when we are plagued with all the ways in which our world and society is going down the drain, its good to know we are doing a few things right. There are ways in which we are still progressing. One of them is medical advances. Our healthcare system might need a bandaid, (or maybe even a body cast), but our life expectancy has reach an all time high. Since obesity and diabetes are still on the rise, we Americans have some work to do to improve our health. But, the advances in cancer treatments, infant mortality rates, treatments of heart disease, hypertension and infectious disease can be attributed to the great advances in modern medicine. And for that, I am truly grateful. As a result of these modern advances, today I will change diapers, make lunches, do laundry and play outside with my kids. Due to the advances of modern medicine, today, tomorrow and the rest of my week, will continue as normal.

For the last couple of years, my Dad, who is nearing 60 (which was the life expectancy of a male in 1930 and 12 years past the life expectancy of males in 1900) has suffered from shortness of breath. All of the tests and prodding only proved that he was remarkably healthy for his age. Finally, after a couple of years, he found a super fancy smancy doctor that ran a few tests and determined he had an extra heart muscle growing over a valve of his heart. It was an easy fix to remove it. Long story short, it didn't turn out to be an easy fix to remove it. Its a heart. With all kinds of intricate pieces really close together. After he coded a couple of times and spent a week in intense pain in the ICU, while we all prayed and held our breath, he stabilized and they popped in a pace maker with a defibrilator. And I say popped, because that seemed to be the easiest part of the whole ordeal. Now I tell you this long saga, because 50 years ago, my Dad would have died from all of this. The first external pacemaker wasn't invented until the 1930s and the first internal pacemaker wasn't until the 1950s. Pacemakers with defibrilators, were invented 10 years ago. There wouldn't have been a doctor that could have removed the extra muscle in the first place, so my Dad would have suffered from shortness of breath until his heart wore out and he had a heart attack. Fifty years ago, I would have been attending a funeral this week for the only parent I have left.

Ten years ago, I had a tubal pregnancy that ruptured and left me, unknowingly, bleeding internally for 5 days. By the time the doctors figured out what was going on with me, my blood volume had decreased by half. I was rushed in for emergency surgery and a blood transfusion. A hundred years ago, I would have died.

So, we may have some things to work on, but our advances in medicine are astonishing. Thanks to that, today, I'll take my kids to the beach instead of attending a funeral and then I'll call my Dad and tell him about all the naughty things Rascal, my 2 year old, did while we were there. And I will thoroughly enjoy him laughing at my stories. Today, I will be grateful for all the good things going on in our world, our nation and my life. Today, I am grateful for my family. I won't worry about fixing things, until tomorrow.

Whaddya think?