I took my mom to the afterhours clinic today. She has this awful staff infection in the cartilage of her ear. It's swollen and painful, and it's blocking the eustacian tube and she can't hear real well through it. But I was struck by a woman, while waiting. She had her teenaged daughter in there with a fever. The doctor was saying it's a low fever, and probably a virus, nothing much to do. The mother was hysterical. Yelling at the doctor to fix her baby. Her 'baby' was 16 or 17 years old, and the doctor was saying that 101 just isn't that high of a fever. It's high enough to not feel good, but it's not a dangerous temperature. The mother was inconsolible. They finally got her to leave, sobbing. I had to go tot he bathroom, and happened to walk out into the lobby as they were leaving. The mother helped the daughter (who didn't appear to need much help) into the very nice shiney mercedes benz convertible. The mother with her obviously designer purse, got onto the cell phone and started to call someone bawling into the phone that she was taking her daughter to the ER because the afterhours clinic was content with letting her daughter die.
I was fascinated by this. She's dressed to the nines on a saturday afternoon, he daughter in designer clothes and shoes. Fancy car, fancy purse and a demand for perfection treatment.
Suddenly, being constantly sick, living under the poverty level and not being on the top end of societies social totem pole, didn't seem like such a raw deal.

I can deal with life. Fevers of 101 don't throw me. Fevers of 105 don't throw me!! I communicate well with doctor's because I understand their jargon and I get it. I have struggled enough that some things that seem dramatic to others, is par for the coarse for me. There is something to be said for that.
I wouldn't want to be soo protected, that a little puff of wind blows me off coarse!