Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

Latest Edition

by Carol J. Rhodes 

Grade school, first bicycle,
high school, first date, first kiss,
college, first car, first job,
third floor walk-up flat.
Bought latest edition of Cooking for One. 

Engagement, marriage, honeymoon,
newness of sleeping in the arms of love,
instead of a kiss at the door.
first house, dinner parties, trips.
Gave Cooking for One to a single friend.
Bought latest edition of Elegant Meals for Two. 

Children, carpools, Little League games,
empty nest, daughters-in-laws,
doctors, hospital, funeral,
strangeness of  small apartment.
Gave Elegant Meals for Two to newlyweds
across the hall.
Bought latest edition of Cooking for One.

Author Bio: Carol J. Rhodes lives in Houston, Texas with a household zoo of two poodles and four cats.  She plays bridge once a week, and always has an online Scrabble game going with her best friend.  She can be reached at: rhodes.cATatt.net

Mothers and Daughters

Mothers Are Human Too
by Marla Lukofsky

Years ago, during a rough patch of communications between my mother and me, I had a conversation with Aunty Phyllis, my mom’s beloved sister and partner-in-crime. I confessed to her that I thought my mother didn’t love me. She paused for a moment, then broke her silence and said, “That’s interesting Marla, because recently your mother told me that she doesn’t think you love her.”  My aunty’s news shocked and pained me. Up until then, I’d never thought that my mother might have the same vulnerabilities that I did. Parents are superhuman after all.

To read the rest: Download Mothers Are Human Too

Marla is on left

 

Two Poems by Jane Seskin

OFFICE VISIT

At the Doctor’s
they’re quick to put you
in a brightly lit room
without a clock, close the door
so you think you’re next,
but honestly, you’re not.

I’m always cold sitting
on the paper-covered exam table,
wearing the short-sleeved gown,
magazine left outside,
shut away from the hallway action
where the staff is merrily chatting.

For years I’ve sat quietly,
patiently, nervously. Isolated.
But now, now I’m in mode of
older smart ass and I-won’t-follow-
your-rules, so I push open the door
… and yes, at long last I am seen.

GRIEF-WORK

I wrote my Mother
a love letter
on a yellow legal pad
a year after her death.

I described workshops taught,
poems published, trips taken,
friends seen, men dated
and at the end

recounted
the incredible loss I felt,
from her absence
in my life.

Then I burned the four pages
in the bathroom sink,
spooned the ashes
into three baggies,

got on a plane to Florida
and scattered the words of love
behind the condo
where she lived with my Dad,

in the park
of the assisted living complex
where she died
in her sleep,

and down the very middle
of her well-kept grave
where I watered the ashes
with my tears.

 

Bio: Jane Seskin is a clinical social worker and the author of Witness To Resilience: Stories of Intimate Violence. You can follow her on Twitter: @jsauthorshrink

A New York Story

We Found Our Son in the Subway by Peter Mercurio

Occasionally, a story appears in the paper that warms our hearts and educates us as well.  This essay, in the Townies section of the NY Times will make you smile and cry at the same time.  It begins...

"The story of how Danny and I were married last July in a Manhattan courtroom, with our son, Kevin, beside us, began 12 years earlier, in a dark, damp subway station.

Danny called me that day, frantic. “I found a baby!” he shouted. “I called 911, but I don’t think they believed me. No one’s coming. I don’t want to leave the baby alone. Get down here and flag down a police car or something.” By nature Danny is a remarkably calm person, so when I felt his heart pounding through the phone line, I knew I had to run."

Link to Townies article.

 

Chicken Soup for the Holidays!

by Leonard J. Hoenig

          The holiday season is a time for joy and celebration.  Sometimes coughs and colds get in the way of the festivities.  There is one useful therapy that should not be overlooked when you or a loved when gets sick:  chicken soup.

          All of us can remember coming home on some wintry night with a bad cold, sore throat and fever.  We would climb into bed and someone would give us a nice hot, delicious bowl of chicken soup that made us feel better.

         Interestingly, chicken soup has been used since antiquity to treat illness.  The Talmud (Shabbos 145b) suggests that Rabbi Abba used something akin to chicken soup for medicinal purposes.  More recently, scientists have studied chicken soup and found it to have beneficial effects on the respiratory system.

          How chicken soup works is unclear.  Is it the aroma, humidity, temperature, calcium content or some other mysterious property that gives it its effectiveness? I suspect these researchers are spending too much time looking at the chicken soup itself instead of focusing on what goes into the making of the chicken soup.  The real ingredients behind the magic of chicken soup are the following:

LOVE:  Nothing can compare with a mother’s love for her sick child.  Mom always knew how to make you feel better.  Every bowl of chicken soup carries within it the memory of mom’s love.

WARMTH:  By warmth I am not referring to temperature.  Rather warmth is the special feeling that exists between close friends or family.  A gentle caress, a compassionate smile and just being there for someone are examples of how people show warmth for one another.  When you are sick and someone makes you chicken soup, you know they really care about you.

TENDER LOVING CARE:  There is more to a cure than giving a pill.  The healing process involves a therapeutic relationship between two people.  When someone is sick, they get better much more quickly when their spirits are uplifted through another’s compassion and caring.  Tender loving care is part and parcel of the healing properties of chicken soup.

          Although pneumonia, influenza, coughs and colds affect millions of persons worldwide each year, there is a much more serious epidemic we all face.  Today we live in a cold, cruel world that is unfortunately filled with hostility, war, terror and hate.  Our leaders have established a United Nations and peace keeping forces to find an answer to armed conflict.

         These are important steps toward peace.  Perhaps what civilization really needs is to get back to the basic human relationship and promote more love, warmth and tender loving care between people and their neighbors.  Maybe the answer to what ails humanity can be found in something as simple as chicken soup!

Happy Holidays to All!

Download Chicken Soup for the Holidays

Photo found at: http://www.ourkrazzykitchen.com/

Reference:  Is Chicken Soup and Essential Drug?  Download Chicken Soup and Essential Drug

Author Bio: Dr. Leonard Hoenig is an internist in private practice in Pembroke Pines, Florida.  He is a Voluntary Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at FIU College of Medicine and University of Miami School of Medicine and enjoys writing on topics in medical humanities.