What my patients taught me.

“Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”:- FDR

I had a patient tonight, an 11 year old boy, who is very afraid to swallow pills. We work on it with him every night, and little by little he's been able to do it.

Tonight i came in with his pills, sat down with him, and handed him his first pill..... he put it in his mouth and drank a little too fast, and started coughing and panicking. After he had calmed down, he went to take his second pill and started to cry. He kept crying "but i'm afraid, i'm going to choke, i'm afraid!"

Me, melting when kids cry, and trying to avoid any further choking incidents, automatically took the pills and headed to the door to go crush them. But his grandfather stopped me and said "No Ben, your going to try again"

"Let me ask you something, do you remember who said "“ The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”?" And to my amazement, Ben knew. Ben then said, "so you mean i'm only afraid because i'm making myself afraid?"

Imagine that. Fear. We create it. It is all in our head.
It's something i have never even acknowledged.

He thought about it, and took the pills, and did great.

If only i had someone to coach me through my fears every time i encountered them..........

"you and I"

don't you worry, there my honey
we might not have any money
but we've got our love to pay the bills

maybe I think you're cute and funny,
maybe I wanna do what bunnies do with you,
with you know what I mean

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France
let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there, you and I, you and I


well you might be a bit confused
and you might be a little bit bruised
but baby how we spoon like no one else
so I will help you read those books
if you will soothe my worried looks
and we will put the lonesome on the shelf