Tuesday, March 17, 2009

In praise of the 21st century
I’ve been rewatching The Tudors on Showtime. Lovely eye candy. I mean it’s historically, well, hysterical. But the men are yummy to look at.

The other night I was thinking about what it would have been like to have lived back then and decided I was happy to be a 21st century woman. But today cemented it.

I woke up with a killer migraine this morning. I’ve been sick all day and only started to feel better about an hour ago. Serious pain. Nausea & vomiting. Swirling colors when I close my eyes. The cat walked across the bed and I cringed because the movement hurt. There was a blue jay in a nearby tree that I swear I would have shot had I been a member of the NRA. Eventually a few doses of Imitrix kicked in and I’m currently just OK. Still the fringes of a migraine. Still weak and wobbly. But nowhere near the pain I was in earlier. Sadly I had to cancel my St. Patrick’s Day special on KZSU, which sucks because I was looking forward to it.

But all I can say is thank god I live in a world with modern chemistry. With hot baths and penicillin. With shampoo and tampons and clean sheets and aspirin. I’m not talking about the luxuries (Ok, clean sheets are probably not one of life’s necessities, but they aredamned important.). But about the things in life that make life bearable. Thank god I don’t live in a time when a migraine would lay you in bed for a week while they bleed you because there was nothing else to do. When your mother would die in childbirth for lack of sanitary conditions. Where a minor flesh would could kill you due to infections that couldn’t be treated.

How lucky we are to live when and where we do. And how incredibly tragic that there are still places where these medieval conditions still exist. Where infant mortality is staggeringly high. Where poverty forces children to work in order to survive. Where simple things that we take for granted, like inoculations and dental care, are unbelievable luxuries.

How did we get so lucky?

1 comment:

FinnyKnits said...

Funny, migraines definitely bring out my gratitude for modernity, too.

Imitrex is a miracle. A straight up miracle.