Mother's Medicine

It started late one night with a fever that wouldn't break. My hand rested on the tiny chest of my one-year-old that rose and fell rapidly, the heartbeat impossibly fast. Is he okay? I wondered. What else can I do?

I called Selene. "He's so hot!" I told her. "I don't want to wake him, but I'm scared." I could hear my friend's mind slowly waking to my terror. I knew I could trust her to want to help; she'd been the one I'd called in the middle of the night nearly a year ago when our house caught fire.

"Did it come on suddenly?" she asked. Yes. "Did you try belladonna?" No, that's a good idea. "And it's Sam, right?" Yes. I heard her shuffling books as she looked up remedies that might match the constitution of my particular child. She suggested one or two other possibilities.

"And Kristin? You're afraid, and I want you to remember that Sam is in God's care, too. You don't have to do it all. This is an opportunity for you to trust in that. Are you with me?" Yes. I could always count on Selene for both homeopathy and prayer, despite my pagan tendencies.

Selene was probably the first in my tribe to take her family's health and wellness into her own hands.  She gave birth a year before I did and quickly ventured into homeopathy as the easiest path to "first, do no harm." She saw a homeopathic physician regularly and invested in fat texts to extend the care beyond her financial means. I was in awe of her passion and her knowledge.

I ambled into homeopathy shyly, and naturopathy more carefully still, wanting to be certain that I did not get cavalier with Mother Nature's medicines. I saw myself as too far removed from nature to know instinctively how to use it. I grew up with very little medicine myself and even fewer trips to the doctor. My mom always seemed to just assume I'd recover from anything I'd come down with given time.

The joy of homeopathy, Selene pointed out, was that it provided a way that comfort could be given within the time it takes to heal. And sometimes, the time could even be shortened...dramatically. Over the course of years, I came to agree with her on both counts and stocked my first aid cabinet with the old faithfuls: arnica montana for bruising, euphrasia officinalis for eye problems, coffea cruda for sleep difficulty, and drosera rotundifolia for dry coughs. These worked regularly on our family, though I know that while it never worked for us, Selene's clan swore by pulsatilla. Other remedies are kept in a jar at the back for particular ailments: aconite, belladonna, valeriana, rhus toxicodendron and others I can't pronounce.

That last, the rhus, made its rounds about my neighborhood when the chicken pox came through. It is not the only medicine that we share in a neighborly fashion. There are at least four houses on our street full of children of all ages who regularly require the medical expertise or support of one or more of the parents among us. We trade advice and remedies freely.

Dana, the soccer player, is good for a splint of any sort and gave me exercises and advice that straightened out my sprained ankle when we didn't have insurance. Tesha has a variety of remedies on hand, both herbal and homeopathic. She is also keen on nutrition for both pets and people. Brandy is up for borrowing my euphrasia herb to make tea with to put in a compress that her preschooler loves for  "pink eye," but Brandy's elder daughter is wary of my witchcraft after she tried a comfrey poultice that healed the skin on her leg before the infection had cleared -- my tough learning to look before making suggestions around comfrey!

Another mother friend, not a direct neighbor, is an excellent resource in all things herbal. She has been wildcrafting since the days before I knew the definition of that word. Mele taught me to trust in the many first aid plants in our midst including plantain for scrapes and stings, dandelion for the upset stomach (helpful after a bad burrito before the big soccer game), and dock for nettle stings.

Mele also taught me to steep herbs in olive oil, stirring them daily until the color and qualities from within the herb coloured the liquid in shades from pink to gold or green. Together, we heated beeswax, some from my own bees, and spun it into the infusions to create a salve that we could pour into so many tins to bestow upon friends and family during the winter holidays.

And what of the traditional holiday treat-sharing among neighbors? Dana's daughter shoved my hummus under her mother's nose when she got home from work. "Try some!" Jetta told her. "Kristin made it instead of Christmas cookies. It came from the weeds in her garden!" I had mixed the garlic and chickpea paste with the ground root of dandelion to cleanse our extended family of the ills of too much sugar in December.

Finally, how could I fail to mention the book that supported me in transitioning into this scrappy, do-it-yourself model of home remedies? Smart Medicine For A Healthier Child by Janet Zand, Rachel Walton, and Bob Rountree carefully lists the homeopathic, naturopathic, dietary and conventional treatments for whatever ails you from A-Z. It also contains sidebars with clear symptomatic points at which it is advisable for a parent to seek medical attention.

With the cost of care being what it is and insurance hard to come by, our self-reliance and interdependence have cultivated a sense of peace and ease in respect to our own healing and well-being. "Believing that a professional's opinion is necessary above one's own intuitive and rational senses is the source of tyranny itself," says Seda. And I believe her. She would also have me mention prayer, and that has often graced our family as well as her own family of origin -- four children growing up in the wilds of Wyoming. Christian Science served them well, and continues to remain in our arsenal of lovingkindness.

So, if it's a prescription you want, here it is: nurture your neighborly healers, yourself among them!  Together, we are assuredly the most caring, convenient, and sustainable medicine one can afford.