From my AJ Blog Growing Up you Didnt Get Sick at My House Submitted by Dr. Brian Carr on October 29, 2014 - 7:01am Growing up in the Carr household we understood the risk of disease. Being the children of a pediatrician my brother, sister and I learned early that being sick was to be avoided. While our friends might awaken with a slight fever and try their best to wiggle out of school we did not want to stay home on sick call. While the following narrative might be a bit stretched in truth it is humorous in the memory of my childhood. You see, when you are the off-spring of a resourceful pediatrician your illness represented an opportunity for research. If a new medication was made available by the pharmaceutical salesmen who called on my dad it was fair game to try it out on us. This might explain why I am the proud holder of three straight years of “neither absent nor tardy” award certificates from Parson’s Elementary school. The certificates now hang in my office as a testament to my steadfast health from the age of 9 through 11. Better to stick it out with the school nurse than lay on the couch in plain view. Dad would join with John Halsey (of the drug store chain once prominent in Lubbock) and they would pilot wondrous elixirs of health in grape, cherry, or orange varieties. Not always that tasty but better than the infamous castor oil of old. Trouble in the bathroom… never fear Fleet’s is here. As a last option we might be administered the dreaded shot. A shot of penicillin was good for man and pet in our house. A wooden tongue depressor was only a pocket away. When your doctor is at the head of the breakfast table you knew to be mindful of any somatic complaints. Ears and mouth would be probed and temperature obtained at the drop of a hat. I came to appreciate the reassurance that my father has offered over his professional career. Even 25+ years after he retired I still hear from the parents and children who were his patients. How he would visit with the parents and their child in one of his small exam rooms down at the Children’s Clinic on 26th and Q. Afterwards he would have you sit on his small sofa in his office where he would go over his findings. Small brochures and hand-written instructions would be provided for home review and assignment. I overheard countless one-sided conversations that my father had while the family ate dinner. “Fell off the couch…Landed on his head…Go ahead and let him rest on the couch and if he is still not feeling better in an hour call me back.” I know that the miracle cure is dry toast and warm 7Up. Not Sprite nor Coke, it has to be 7Up. The toast must not have any butter on it. It is the cure for what ails you so well learned that I still find it beneficial for those aches and pains of middle age. In the wake of the hysteria about Ebola it is well to remember the real epidemics of disease that our country faced during my father’s career. Polio, measles, mumps and whooping cough maimed and killed thousands. The current curious chicken dance by the media and those who should know better pales in the actual history of disease in our country. In 2007 Dad spoke to a lunch club about his experience as a Pediatrician which I taped and have linked at https://youtube/watch?v=6T2QzLG2sw0 . At approximately minute 13 he talks about what we faced with polio. It is useful to remember the real terror of polio and celebrate how public health contained and then controlled this dread disease. Even while celebrating this triumph of medicine over disease we are again facing a resurgence of these diseases because of misinformation, complacence, and outright lies. Now go get your flu shot, stop freaking out about Ebola, and stock up on toast and 7Up.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 12:06:01 +0000
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