The eyes and the brain are amazing organs, allowing us to see and interpret the world around us.
Or, in some cases, letting us delude ourselves into believing we’re seeing something different from objective reality.
That’s what …

Now I know how one of my sisters-in-law felt when I asked her not to turn baby Big Guy on his belly while he slept.
Her youngest child was only 6, and her pediatrician always had …

After two winters of tumult as the Food and Drug Administration danced the children’s cold-medicine hokey-pokey, finally there’s a report with a conclusion other than recall it all.
Researchers in Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin …

Forget the fruits and veggies and go ahead and binge on the burgers. You’ll eventually have to turn your kids loose on the world anyway, where their friends, television and school might be a bigger …

Proof positive health-insurance executives are living on a different planet from the rest of us:
A company that covers federal workers tells a 5-year-old Reno girl with leukemia that she’ll have to have chemotherapy in Oakland. …

1. If you’re having a hot flash, don’t assume it’s because you’re in your 50s. Have your son take you to the emergency room. You might have swine flu.
2. If you sneeze, forget the fact …

It’s a few years late and a little awkward, but the government is making steady progress on catching up with the rest of teh interwebs in providing timely information.
The latest effort, which involves the Centers …

If the reporter had had a camera and not just a micrcophone, he might have been taking his life into his hands by cornering a mom traveling alone with two rambunctious guys.
As it were, we’d …

Frustrated with the world? Stressed by the times we live in? Fine, but don’t take it out on your kids by feeding them junk.
According to the latest research from the It’s All Mom’s Fault Department, …

When we last left Pulmicort, the asthma medicine popular for children was about to become a generic after Israeli company Teva Pharmaceuticals got permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to produce it. British …

Funny how a study that tells us what we largely already know - sitting around can hurt your health - can trigger such skepticism.
That’s how some have reacted to a British Medical Association journal article …

The only surprising thing about a new University of Colorado, Boulder study is that who ever wrote the press release thought it was surprising.
“New iPod Listening Study Shows Surprising Behavior of Teens,” the headline reads.
The …

I have never rooted so hard for anyone to win the lottery - or to get a $2 million interview deal - as I am for Nadya Suleman.
Face it, this struggling mother of 14 is …

Here’s strange advice from an executive with a fast-food chain: Don’t pig out on our food.
That’s in essences what  Papa John’s founder John Schnatter said in an interview this week.
“Pizza’s actually healthy for you if …

I understand having one baby and stopping right there.
We almost did just that because of my age - 39 - when Big Guy was born. There were many who questioned our decision, in fact, when …

I don’t know which scared me more the day I swerved my Ford Escort off the freeway just in time to see the engine ignite: The flames shooting from the hood or my stepdad’s predictable …

How to kid yourself about the obesity epidemic without even trying:

Say “it’s just baby fat” as the baby approaches kindergarten.
Pretend that Pull-Ups made for kids up to 125 pounds are for potty-training teens.
Believe a pediatrician …

Other than what people who are so Pepsi-addicted they feed it to babies in bottles sneak to them behind my back and a shared diet Sierra Mist once a week with popcorn, the guys don’t …

Once in a while, I’ll run across something so confusing I’m not sure who the good guys are.
Like this morning when I saw that the Food and Drug Administration has approved a generic version of …

Insulin and pills, amputations and hospitalizations, lost productivity, disability and early retirement: It all adds up to a $218 billion annual cost of diabetes in the United States, according to a study …

Sometimes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reminds me of Big Guy looking for his shoes in the morning.
“Where are they?” he’ll say.
“They’re right beside you.”
“But I don’t see them.”
Dude, just look.
Which is not …

I’m aghast. Not that it takes much to make me aghast. I usually find enough material by noon to sail past the government’s recommended daily allowance.
And news about health trends will put me over edge …

“The only thing we have to fear is the fear of fear itself.

OK, so that’s not exactly the way Franklin Roosevelt put it. But he would have if he’d met Big Guy, who learned a lesson last week about fear feeding on itself.

I’d promised Big Guy he wouldn’t have to go through allergy testing again until the fall, but under the “”three barfs, you’re out”" rule, his bout of birthday sickness earned him an early trip. It was the third time he’d thrown up after eating hamburgers, and since nausea is one possible sign of a food allergy, I wanted to have him checked.

He’d actually looked forward to the trip, figuring the early testing would be worth it if he could go back on his burger binge. Plus, during our last visit

I knew it couldn’t last forever – eventually, even Lou Gehrig bowed out and Cal Ripken took a seat.

Not that the guys’ string of healthy days was anything close to Iron Man-like. Still, if you overlook Big Guy’s days out due to surgery last autumn, six illness-free months is a decent run. Even the four-plus months of perfect attendance since surgery is stunning.

I held my breath all winter and was amazed when spring arrived with sick days unused – that hadn’t happened since Big Guy was born.

It came to an end this week, and the only surprising part is that the asthmatic king of the ear infection wasn’t the one who closed the streak.

Instead, it was Little Guy. The kid who never gets sick, whose non-routine doctor’s visits I can count on one hand. Sniffles turned into snotterfalls turned into some undefined infection. Which turned into a 102-degree temperature.

Big Guy’s a battler — you can see it on the soccer field and in the “Piston Cups” he awards himself for every victory, real or imagined, over Little Guy and me. Until the past week, though, I had no idea just how much determination a scrawny little body could hold.

Big Guy had surgery last Monday for an umbilical hernia. I’d long known the day was coming. The hernia was roughly the size of a golf ball when it ballooned out after his cord fell off. While the gap’s narrowed in recent years, he still had  a thumb-sized whole in his abdominal wall and an elephant trunk where a belly button should be.

It wasn’t a life-threatening condition, and it wasn’t major surgery – it took