We’re at that age…..
Here we are. This must be close to middle age — the time when not only are we taking care of our kids, but helping take care of our parents as well. Never has this been brought home to me like the past week. My dad had to have knee surgery, and the same day, my mother-in-law (who lives nearby), slipped on the rain-slicked stairs and cracked her head. Both are going to be okay, but obviously, it will take some recovery time.
And then come complications. My dad had some complications following surgery. He’ll still be alright, but it requires some new medications, and the problem is — where to find a doctor’s office that will take care of him and monitor the medication’s effects closer to where he lives? Doctors don’t take new patients if they’re on Medicare. Hmmmmm. What does that mean for the many seniors who need care? What if you move? What if you need care right away, and the doctor’s office says, “We can’t get you in for 3-4 weeks?”
Our doctors here are great. They take care of not only us, but our extended family. There’s never any issue if we need in in a hurry. It’s done. If there needs to be follow up, we can often get in THAT SAME DAY. We are grateful for our doctors and their care. But it does raise questions about what happens in the future, and what happens if our doctors retire, or something else happened and we needed to find new doctors.
Healthcare reform will be a work in progress. I don’t know how the new healthcare reform billl will work. And neither do a lot of others. I emceed an annual employee meeting for a large company, and the CEO said he asked the CEO of one of the leading healthcare providers here ‘what it all meant.’ That healthcare CEO said he ‘didn’t know.’ If THEY can’t tell what will happen, where does that leave the rest of us?
Be grateful for your health. In the end, we have to be grateful for our health, and our access to good care. And as we reach ‘middle age,’ I suspect we’ll be seeing our doctors a little more often that we used to, whether it’s for us, our kids, or are parents.
