All in Doctorly Musings

Rainbows

Every since Mini Me was little, we've talked about different types of families.  We've talked about families with just one parent, with two parents that are boys or girls or one of each, and with different households. 

Special Delivery Book Anniversary and Selfish Holidays

Celebrating the 5 year book anniversary of Special Delivery:

What's Special Delivery?  It's a children's book that I wrote when Mini Me was two years old and I was pregnant with Macy, my daughter who lived only briefly.  One sleepless night I couldn't get these words out of my head as we were figuring out how to tell Mini Me that her sister was likely going to die. 

Eventually, for Macy's funeral, we had five  books printed at a local shop.  And then, in 2012, we received a grant from Sappi Ideas That Matter to have the book published so that we could distribute them to other families, free of cost. 

Fridays I'm in Love

On Fridays on my way to work, I see the same man walking toward the cemetery with a huge bunch of flowers.  I only see him if I go to work after dropping off the girls, but like clockwork, he is there with his fisherman's vest on, and that bright bundle of flowers. Every time I see him, I can't help but smile.  But it's a bittersweet smile.

We Learned From the Best

There are many things I could admire about Lola, especially today on what would have been her 96th birthday.  I could admire the fact that she had a PhD, at a time when attaining a higher education for a female could not have been easy.  I could admire the way she traveled the world with my Lolo, and then continued to do so years after he passed away.  She lived for 17 years after him, and I can only imagine her grief.  Even now, for me, she has been gone for 16 years and I miss her every single day.

What I choose to remember most and admire the most about my Lola is her generous spirit.

Defunding Planned Parenthood

I've been reading a lot on social media and online about what happens when we defund Planned Parenthood, and what the repercussions of the new healthcare act will have on underserved populations.  I won't pretend to be a journalist and I won't pretend that I understand all the minutiae of what is going on.  But let me tell you what defunding Planned Parenthood means to me as a pediatrician. 

In my lifetime, I've had to tell two separate twelve-year-old girls that they were pregnant.  Two.  One when I was a resident one when I was an attending. 

For both, I don't know the outcome.