Are all children spying? just me? As a child, I spent hours snooping around in my parents ‘table, grandma’s pocketbook, and my older brothers’ wardrobe drawers. I’m not sure what exactly I was looking for, other than validating my suspicion that the teens and adults in my life were keeping secrets from me.
And there was no chance of spying looking richer than the double-mirrored medicine cabinets hanging from my parents’ bathroom wall. My mom was kind of boring, her glass shelves lined with bottles of aspirin and antacids, plus a dusty jar of jewel-colored bath oil beads. My father was a treasure trove – at least to me. As an orthopedic surgeon, he had access to all kinds of tools he stored his medicine cabinet: syringes, alcohol, sterile gauze, opium tincture, ACE dressings, gentian violet, and even butazolidine, an injectable anti-inflammatory for a long time on the market. For humans, although it continues to be used by veterinarians.
Attractively, these elements appear mysteriously mysterious and dangerous. In fact, they probably inspired me, the desire to become a doctor one day, to join an exclusive club whose members know how to use such things. What I realized later, however, was that my father’s medicine box provided a window into his attitude toward health. While he often has one disease or another, he has never given up on his doctor’s identity, nor has he fully embraced the role of the patient. The contents of his medicine box stated that no matter how sick he was, he could take care of himself.
Familial Sickness Culture: Are You Extremist or Moderate?
Along with our family’s medical history – the one our doctors record when they ask which of our relatives has cancer, diabetes, or heart disease – we each have a parallel history, what I like to think of as our family history. the culture Of the disease. A decade ago, at Your medicine Mind: How you decide what’s right for youHarvard University doctors Jerome Grobman and Pamela Hartsband broadly divided people into medical “extremists” and “minimal.” Extremists are more likely to go to the doctor, willingly take medication, and undergo invasive tests. Takes a minimal wait-and-see approach; They prefer to seek remedies in diet and exercise. The Married Groupman and Hartsband detail how these attitudes are formed early in life and are deeply rooted in the family’s approach to health and disease.
In my family’s case, I now see my father’s medicine box reversing the limit – with a twist: Dad would go for an aggressive treatment, but he wanted to maintain some control, perhaps even by administering the treatment himself. By contrast, my mom was very simple. Unless a hot bath can remedy it, a few TUMS sessions and a long phone conversation will.
A look at our approach to health
So, having grown up with this mixed culture of disease, what is in my medicine cabinet? When our children were young, my husband and I were very simple doctor. We kept a thermometer of questionable accuracy, an old calamine lotion, and a crusty bottle of Tylenol liquid. We were not irresponsible parents, but keeping a well-stocked dispensary at home was never a priority for us. I liked a friend who was ready for him Any thing – She always had antihistamines with Tylenol, Advil, and And the Normal – but I never felt moved to emulate it.
Now that our children are grown up, I see a continuation of our simplicity. But there’s also a new element: a touch of storage, which replacing roomy bathroom drawers with wall cabinets seems to encourage. We collected dozens of bottles of shampoo, conditioner and lotion from the hotel, as well as bottles of regular size; We’re not without at least one bottle of Costco mega-sized ibuprofen; And we have a hot water bottle and a heating pad, And the Microwave hot pack – we haven’t used any of it before. Why exactly are we preparing? The sudden onslaught of aging that we fear will make us unaware?
Take a look at your medicine cabinet now. What do you say about you?
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