All in Doctorly Musings

My Heart is So Full

My Heart is So Full

Melanie Tioleco-Cheng
Doctorly Musings

Our house isn’t ready for Christmas.  My stack of cards, unaddressed, is still sitting there.  We don’t have our tree up yet because we’ve been sick.  Our stockings aren’t hung by the chimney with care.  (Though Mr. Bookworm has taken our Christmas boxes down from the attic.)  And though we have lots of presents, none of them are wrapped.  There is no guarantee of any of those things actually getting done this weekend either—not with us being sick.  And that’s okay.  

The only thing that MUST get done today is the movies.  Because we’re off to see The Last Jedi today. 

Rainbows

Rainbows

Melanie Tioleco-Cheng
Doctorly Musings

Every since Mini Me was little, we've talked about different types of families.  We've talked about families with just one parent, with two parents that are boys or girls or one of each, and with different households. 

Special Delivery Book Anniversary and Selfish Holidays

Special Delivery Book Anniversary and Selfish Holidays

Melanie Tioleco-Cheng
Doctorly Musings

Celebrating the 5 year book anniversary of Special Delivery:

What's Special Delivery?  It's a children's book that I wrote when Mini Me was two years old and I was pregnant with Macy, my daughter who lived only briefly.  One sleepless night I couldn't get these words out of my head as we were figuring out how to tell Mini Me that her sister was likely going to die. 

Eventually, for Macy's funeral, we had five  books printed at a local shop.  And then, in 2012, we received a grant from Sappi Ideas That Matter to have the book published so that we could distribute them to other families, free of cost. 

Fridays I'm in Love

Fridays I'm in Love

Melanie Tioleco-Cheng
Doctorly Musings

On Fridays on my way to work, I see the same man walking toward the cemetery with a huge bunch of flowers.  I only see him if I go to work after dropping off the girls, but like clockwork, he is there with his fisherman's vest on, and that bright bundle of flowers. Every time I see him, I can't help but smile.  But it's a bittersweet smile.

We Learned From the Best

We Learned From the Best

Melanie Tioleco-Cheng
Doctorly Musings

There are many things I could admire about Lola, especially today on what would have been her 96th birthday.  I could admire the fact that she had a PhD, at a time when attaining a higher education for a female could not have been easy.  I could admire the way she traveled the world with my Lolo, and then continued to do so years after he passed away.  She lived for 17 years after him, and I can only imagine her grief.  Even now, for me, she has been gone for 16 years and I miss her every single day.

What I choose to remember most and admire the most about my Lola is her generous spirit.

Defunding Planned Parenthood

Defunding Planned Parenthood

Melanie Tioleco-Cheng
Doctorly Musings

I've been reading a lot on social media and online about what happens when we defund Planned Parenthood, and what the repercussions of the new healthcare act will have on underserved populations.  I won't pretend to be a journalist and I won't pretend that I understand all the minutiae of what is going on.  But let me tell you what defunding Planned Parenthood means to me as a pediatrician. 

In my lifetime, I've had to tell two separate twelve-year-old girls that they were pregnant.  Two.  One when I was a resident one when I was an attending. 

For both, I don't know the outcome. 

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