In the month of November, I’m meditating on my gratitude for something different each day.

I woke up this morning with chills and aches, promptly crawling back into bed after dropping Aidan off at school. I figure this is the perfect opportunity to be thankful for medicine. I don’t just mean pharmaceuticals, but the entire field of medicine.

Without medicine, my abuela would have passed a few weeks ago, albeit at the ripe old age of 102. Instead, she just celebrated her 103rd birthday. My mother, who just turned 70 a few days before my abuela, would not be here either.

While our healthcare system is often expensive and imperfect, I know that we’re still blessed to have access to the quality of care and treatments. I hope that reform will make it even more accessible. In the meantime, I’m thankful that my son has all his vaccines and that he doesn’t have to worry about smallpox or polio. I’m thankful that what might be lethal in another part of the world, like infection or diarrhea, is usually treated with a trip to the doctor or pharmacy. I can’t fathom losing someone I love to something that seems so simple to me. The hope, of course, is that some day no one else will be able to fathom it either.