Our six-year-old has recently decided that going to the hospital is tantamount to dying.  Probably in the worst way.

I’m not sure what led to this decision.  The fact that she worried over three great grandparents last year, all of whom made regular visits to the hospital, and all of whom died within a period of six months, just may have something to do with it.  Then again, maybe she can recall my last run-in with peanuts, in which her cheerful, healthy, mother dropped her off for school, and she was brought home at 10:00 pm to a bruised, weary and drug-drowsy mother–who had just come from the hospital.

At any rate, she decided that she was never, NEVER, going to the hospital.  Rather out of the blue.  Given that it may someday prove a necessity and I’d rather not drag her in screaming, I explained that often the only way to make whatever is wrong get better is by going to the hospital.  I told her about the pain my teen sister experienced when her appendix was inflamed, and how getting it taken out made her better.

So, she’s modified her mantra.  She will now go to the hospital as a last resort, but spends half her time hoping that she’ll never have to go.

Given the state of our nation’s health care and the somewhat spotty record of hospitals, I can’t blame her.  I really expect she’s not alone, as this fellow’s attention to scrubs seems to indicate.  And, after all, in my wonderfully convincing argument I failed to mention my sister’s long and painful recovery from her surgery and brief hospital stay.