We take it for granted...

My children and I have been sick recently, making posting difficult. My daughter experienced sharp pains in the right side of her abdomen. I was able to take her to her pediatrician, where she was seen within 30 minutes. When referred to the E.R., was able to see an E.R. doctor within an hour of our arrival. My daughter received an ultrasound and an x-ray that afternoon.

Later in the week, we passed a virus around the family, and I found myself battling bronchitis and asthma. As I was gasping for breath, I realized that I really should have renewed the prescription on the albuterol inhaler BEFORE I needed it. A call to the physician's office and a trip to the grocery store later, I had the medicine I needed -- along with decongestant, several boxes of herbal tea, cough drops with echinacea, chicken soup, and popsicles.

Several times as I sat with my daughter in the waiting rooms at the doctor's office and the children's hospital, I thought of the mothers whose children die of malaria and other treatable diseases for lack of access to medical care. As I filled my shopping cart at the grocery store, I thought of Woody Collins and his Ending Extreme Poverty in the Congo blog. Even if a person there had the money to shop for the luxuries I had in my cart -- which I considered necessities, right down to the popsicles -- there would be no place to buy them.

Something to think about this Thanksgiving.