100 Days of Gratitude: Day 7

Today (and many days) I'm grateful for modern medicine. Without it, my life would be very different. Maybe I wouldn't even be alive. I had a relatively easy pregnancy with John, but the delivery was very difficult. Well, these days I can use the word "difficult." I think there was a time when the word would've been "dangerous." I won't go into all the details, but I've always wondered if John and I would've died during childbirth if we'd lived 100 years ago.

Thanks to modern medicine, I don't have to worry about things like scarlet fever, meningitis, and other previously common childhood ailments that were always serious and sometimes deadly. Yes, tragedies can and do happen to children these days, but it is no where near as common as it used to be. Take a walk through an older section of any cemetery, and see if all the tiny graves there don't make you feel grateful to be living when we do.

Immunizations aren't the only modern miracle. I know there's some debate about antibiotics, but I'm grateful for them anyway. Over spring break, we discovered Chris had strep throat. By the time I took him to the doctor, the worst had passed. His throat didn't look like it was strep and his fever was gone. The rapid test in the office came back negative. I was feeling stupid for taking him down there, like I should've waited one more day. But the two-day lab test came back positive.

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So not only do I get to be thankful for lab tests that detect a possibly serious infection I didn't know was there and I would not want raging through my little munchkin's body, but I get to be grateful for antibiotics which will get rid of it. Easily. How many times do we hear of people getting strep and think, "Oh man, that stinks." But then that's it. I mean, it's not the end of the world. They'll survive. It's nice to be at that point. Sometimes I think we forget how serious infections really could be, since antibiotics are so available (and effective). I have a friend whose grandmother died at a very young age from what was basically a tooth infection. I mean, a tooth infection!

I'm also grateful for the advances in the mental health field. Depression, in various degrees, runs in my family on both sides. In fact, on my mother's side of the family, my great-grandfather died in the mental hospital on Van Buren. There was a time when locking someone away was all people knew to do. My much older brother (half-brother, we have the same dad) had bipolar disorder and committed suicide many years ago. (There are a few issues on Brian's side too, so my poor kids are getting a double whammy.) My mother and sister both have depression (very successfully treated with antidepressants). I, myself, suffered with postpartum depression with my last two children (again, treated with antidepressants, thankfully). Postpartum was misunderstood not all that long ago, and too often ended in one tragedy or another.

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In college, I read a story called The Yellow Wallpaper, written in 1891, about a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Because of the way they treat her (or fail to treat her), she only gets worse and ends up slipping into psychosis. (Click here if you want to read the full text.) Even in one of my favorite books, These Is My Words, there's a very minor character who suffers from postpartum depression. No one knows what to do to help her, and she ends up killing her baby. How. Awful. There's still a lack of education out there and we still hear about stories like this sometimes, but it's not for lack of effective treatment. Antidepressants are a Godsend, as far as I'm concerned.

Now, I know this is a post on gratitude and I should just be positive, but since we're on the subject of modern times and depression, I have to say for the record that I think depression is far more common now than it used to be. I think the reason for that is simple. Modern society promotes mental unwellness. We don't sleep enough, we don't exercise enough, we don't eat right, we're too busy, too overstimulated, too pressured, too isolated. I'm a big believer that all these things can affect our mental health. But I'm not one of those who gets an attitude about antidepressants being overused. At all. By all means, make corrections to your lifestyle if you suffer from depression. But no amount of willpower can overcome clinical depression, which is a physical, chemical imbalance. That's like telling someone with strep throat just to decide to get better. That ain't gonna happen. If you need antidepressants, take them and be grateful for them.

I'm sure there are more things about modern medicine I could go on about, but these are the things I've thought about many times over the years. It's amazing what doctors can do now. Every now and then I read or hear about studies people are conducting and problems doctors are trying to solve. It makes me wonder what breakthroughs the next 50 or 100 years will bring. Meanwhile, I'm grateful for all the advances which have brought us to where we are today.