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Nausea is a common symptom during childhood, and occurs with many illnesses. Sometimes it occurs alone, at other times it is accompanied by vomiting. Nausea is rarely an indication of serious illness — it is most commonly seen in simple viral illnesses.

Nausea is best treated with simple measures, such as avoiding fatty foods or heavy meals, and encouraging the intake of frequent small quantities of fluids and bland foods.

Medicines and injections to prevent nausea should never be used in young children. They are rarely effective and can have very unpleasant neurological side effects.

CARE OF THE SICK CHILD

As parents, it is our role and responsibility to care for and nurture our children. Children are especially vulnerable during times of illness, and in constant need of our support and reassurance at such times. Knowing that you care for him and that you are there to help him through the rough patch goes a long way towards putting your child back on the road to recovery.

We do not believe that medications alone are the answer to illness; TLC (tender loving care) also plays a vital role. A child who is given the attention he deserves while he is ill will have a better chance of a quick and complete recovery. As to whether or not chicken soup is effective in the treatment of illness, well… it can’t hurt! It is undoubtedly the love and devotion stirred into the pot that do the trick.

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Becoming a parent must surely be one of the joys of life. There is little that can equal the pleasure of the dance between a newborn baby and parent. Then, as the baby grows and develops an increasing and amazing repertoire of capabilities, the parent can tune into the magic that is childhood. Of course it is not all smooth sailing, and there are everyday stresses and hassles as well.

Parents are human, and have needs too. Some parents are so concerned for and involved with their children that they neglect their own needs — for rest, relaxation and stimulation. Becoming a parent for the first time brings about an enormous and often stressful change in lifestyle for most people, and many fears and anxieties are experienced during the pregnancy and the first few months after birth. Parenting is hard work most of the time, but the rewards are many. Do not try to be a martyr. The best gift you can give to your children is to be a relaxed, fulfilled parent. Here are some thoughts on what may help you get through the day and still enjoy your child. These are in no particular order of importance. Trust your instincts You can listen to advice from family, friends and professionals, and read what all the experts write, but in the end you should rely on your own intuition as fo what to do in relation to your child.

All children are different Try not to compare one with the other, and respect individual differences.

Keep a sense of humour This may be the most important piece of advice to heed as we go through life, especially as a parent. The ability to laugh at a situation, and at oneself, is the very best form of therapy we can receive.

Relate to your children in a warm, gentle, sensitive way Ultimately this is always more successful than verbal threats or physical punishment.

Above all, love and enjoy your children The years fly past all too rapidly.

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Adolescence is so sexually problematic not only because of resistance to allowing our young people to enter our adult world, but because the first three stages of sexual development are difficult for most children. When adolescence is taking place, the focus can be on “doing it” if the sexual self-concept and emotional response to sexual feelings have been disrupted or delayed. In a society that values action over feeling, doing over thinking, acting over reflecting, it is difficult to come through adolescence with an integration of love and sex. We teach our teens to be a man or woman rather than experience their own personhood and the personhood of others. We teach them to fear anything but the strictest of gender division lines.

You have already learned to read your love map and I have discussed these adolescent concerns, but reconsider now your own ability to unite sex with love. Would you say, would your children say, that love and sex are the same? They are, but our society teaches that they are different because our society seems stuck at this developmental phase itself, continuing to separate doing from feeling.

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Say you have a cancer that fulfills all the conditions I have described—one for which cure by surgical removal seems possible. Perhaps you are prepared to pay any price at all for any chance at all of cure. If not, you still need to weigh the likely benefit against the likely cost before agreeing to the ODeration.

Check the questions I listed at the beginning of this chapter. What is the chance of cure? What other ways, if any, are there of achieving a cure? Some cancers which can be cured by surgical removal can also be cured by radiation treatment. Surgery has certain advantages—diseased tissues are actually seen, removed and examined under the microscope for completeness of removal. There is no equivalent way of being sure that radiation treatment includes the whole of the primary cancer. Surgery takes a few hours and a week or two in hospital, radiation treatment can take six to eight weeks. On the other hand, radiation treatment can be less mutiliating. For example, patients with cancers of the tongue, lip, throat, larynx (voice-box) and breast are likely to be much less disfigured if treated with radiotherapy than if treated with surgery.

Ask whether your chances would be improved by combining surgery with other forms of treatment. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are very specialised types of treatment so your surgeon will probably not know a lot about them. Ask to be referred to these specialists if you suspect or know that they could play a useful part in your treatment.

Make sure you have answers to all of the questions at the beginning of this chapter before making your decision. Surgery aimed at curing cancer should not be rushed into but, rather, carefully planned. This means there should be plenty of time to get all the information you need.

Consider every aspect of the possible ‘cost’ and benefit that is important to you, not just what your surgeon accepts as important. You are the one who will be stuck with any disfigurement, discomfort or inconvenience, not your surgeon! Anything you think is important, is important. Don’t be talked out of what you know about yourself.

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Surgery remains the main form of treatment for hydatid disease in humans. Care is necessary in removing the cyst, as rupture may cause spillage and seeding of further cysts.

Although the mortality for such surgery is low, the morbidity is high. This means there is a high rate of complications and recovery may be slow. The decision to operate on a patient with hydatid disease is not always straightforward.

Healthy patients with cysts in the liver should be operated on, as there are few risks.

Those with cysts in the brain, the bones and the spine may demand operation because of the risk to life or proper functioning.

Elderly, unfit patients, especially if the cysts show evidence of calcification, indicating the contents may not contain living parasites, are usually best left alone.

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Early infection may result in marked changes.

The resulting damage may be so severe as to cause an early abortion or the death of the foetus during later pregnancy or during or shortly after birth. Some infants are born blind or mentally retarded. The infection can affect the brain, the liver.the eye or other foetal tissues.

Infections acquired late in the pregnancy may not show up for several months after birth and, while not all such infections are severe, varying grades of disability may be present.

The child may be born, appear normal and then, in the first few weeks of life, show signs of infection. Involvement of the brain may lead to convulsions or muscular twitchings. Obstruction to the flow of cerebrospinal fluid through the brain can result in the condition of hydrocephalus, where there is enlargement of the head.

Treatment of this condition is effective in acquired cases but gives poorer results when damage to various tissues has occurred where the infection has developed in the womb.

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Although we wish him to be heroic, loving, compassionate, wise, available to us at any time of day, fascinated by our particular case, skilled in matters of medicine as well as accomplished in the subtle manners of handling people, brilliant diagnosticians, chatty, charitable, and good-humored, we may find we are on a quest for the doctor who only rarely exists, if at all. We want a doctor who is a good person and a caring practitioner, but we may also be asking for him to be a god.

Many doctors incline toward a role as a lesser god. This can cause some conflict between such doctors and the patient who is a reluctant worshiper. Doctors who live the god role may be exemplary diagnosticians, dazzling surgeons, insightful theoreticians, awesome innovators—but they may not be able to talk simply, directly, and kindly to a patient. With a deep need to be sure of themselves, they can dismiss a patient who asks questions that require more information or explanation. Women doctors are not exempt from the god complex, even though we somehow expect them or wish them to be.

The most effective method of deciding if a doctor is right for you is if you can say yes to the following statements after discussing your case with him,

1. Is my doctor a partner in my health care? This is the critical question to ask yourself after first consulting with a doctor- Do you feel as if he cares about you? Or do you get the distinct impression that he expects you to do as he suggests, without question, including Options for surgery?

2. Can I talk openly about nay medical problems with my doctor? You should feel an immediate rapport with your doctor so that you are not intimidated into silence, thereby omitting what can be essential information to treating your case. If you cannot speak freely with your doctor, you are doing yourself a disservice. Find another with the right chemistry for you.

3. Do I fact confidence in my doctor’s ability? You must feel that your doctor understands your condition and know that he is willing to explain it to you. Can he correctly diagnose and treat your problem so that it does not become worse over time? If you are seeing a doctor who repeatedly tells you that your symptoms are psychosomatic, when you know you are suffering from real pain—he may be missing the diagnosis. If you fed lagging confidence in your doctor, remember that you are entitled to a second opinion. Do not worry what the first doctor will think about this if he finds out. It is your body, your health, and your right to seek the best medical care.

4. Do I feel safe knowing that my doctor doesn’t rush into the more radical approaches to treatment? Among the most common complaints against doctors are the rash use of prescription drugs and unnecessary surgery. Endometriosis sufferers tend to be susceptible to such mistreatments. If your doctor appears eager to operate, suggesting that he will “save everything” he can, immediately seek a second opinion and, if necessary, a third or fourth. You want to save everything you can, too: your internal organs. And if you are taking prescription drugs that have ill effects or no effect, or if you think you are becoming addicted to a drug, tell your doctor. If he insists that you continue on the drug and dismisses your discomfort, find another doctor.

These are the key factors in selecting the right doctor. If after evaluating your answers, it is strikingly dear that you need a different specialist, be assured that you are not alone. Other women with endometriosis have had similar experiences. Fortunately; such women can be found, and they communicate!

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Another practice being used for stress relief, which is the polar opposite of encounter groups, is meditation. The most widespread and easily accessible technique is called Transcendental Meditation. It first caught the headlines in 1967, when the Beatles and Mia Farrow tripped off to the Himalayas to learn about it from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

With T.M. the individual sits down and closes his eyes for two periods of 20 minutes a day, during which time he, in effect, leaves the stress battlefield, willing himself into a state called ‘restful alertness’. He does this by concentrating on the silent repetition of a word called a mantra, a soothing meaningless sound secretly assigned to each student by the instructor.

After commencing meditation, various things may occur. Frequently there is a marked increase in the number of dreams during sleep- This is thought to be very beneficial, since we all need to dream at night whether or not we remember our dreams the next morning. It has been demonstrated that people who do not dream enough become tense and anxious. Dreams, fantasies, trances, hallucinations, are all forms of consciousness expansion and are enriching experiences. Physiologists have shown that in meditation there is a marked reduction of oxygen consumption; the reduction is greater than that of a person after six hours of sleep. Similarly galvanic skin resistance, another positive key to relaxation, in some cases is increased fourfold. In this and other movements derived from the East, diet is often involved, a vegetarian emphasis being common. Almost always there is also a degree of deliberate detachment from the turmoil of daily urban life, and a surrender to a group. This erasure of ego can produce a calm and may ease many life stresses.

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A third influencing variable, interacting with biological and environmental factors in the determination of body fat stores, is individual behaviour. Behaviour is the net result of complex psychological factors, involving the effects of habits, emotions and cognitions. Habits are learned ways of responding. Emotions represent the affective state of consciousness. Cognitive processes involve patterns of thinking. All of these are integrated by our belief systems about ourselves and the world. A common example of interactions between these factors is the vicious cycle of diet failure, guilt, depression, lowered self-worth and counterproductive habits which result from and lead to repeated failures with weight loss diet plans. Although there is no evidence to suggest that psychopathology is a major cause of obesity, these individual psychological factors have to be considered as haying both a cause and effect association. Interventions designed to deal with these are a vital part of any overall strategy.

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Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese treatment which is thought to restore energy flows in the body, thereby alleviating pain and allowing healing.

Acupuncture usually involves placing fine, sterile, stainless steel needles in specific locations on the body depending on the site of the pain. The needles may then be manipulated and rotated by hand or stimulated electrically.

The depth of the needle penetration, the number of points on your body that are stimulated and the duration of treatment will vary according to the symptoms.

Acupuncture is a simple and safe procedure if practised by a properly qualified medical practitioner.

There may be a little discomfort during the treatment and you may experience slight bruising where the needles have been inserted.

Many doctors practising acupuncture now use single or disposable needles to eliminate the risk of infection.

Some women suffering from endometriosis have gained significant relief from their pain with the use of acupuncture.

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