Where do we go now?

Like many people I know, I am very disappointed in the outcome of the presidential election in the USA. I am disappointed that we still have a culture that doesn't recognize the equality of women to men. I am especially disappointed in the women who voted against a very well-qualified woman who was by far the best candidate. 

I enjoyed the lack of chaos this past four years with Joe Biden leading the country. How nice it was to have a man of good character in charge. He has had fifty years of experience in government and could work with both sides of Congress and he did. He worked to help all people against a Congress that fought him and still, he passed laws that created more jobs than anyone had in years. Everywhere I go, I see businesses begging for help. They need workers and some have closed because they can't get the help they need. Where will they find people who will work in fast-food, wait tables, work night shifts or bag groceries? Those workers have found better easier jobs that pay more. 

When our workforce has jobs and makes a living, the country does well. The entire world suffered from inflation after the Pandemic, but our country has done better than any of them. However, the average person didn't see that. They just saw prices were high at the grocery store and they blamed President Biden who has spoken about steps the administration has taken to increase consumer choice and scrutinize what he called "mega mergers" that reduce competition.  Bill Clinton explains it so well.  I am amazed at the people who think a president can wave a flag and fix everything that is a problem in a country. There is lots of red tape to get through before changes can be made. So many people have to agree before anything happens. I learned that from reading Barack Obama's memoir.

But the voters in our country voted for leadership that is biased against many of our people especially women. It seems only rich white men of dubious character are going to run this country now. All the middle-class or economically challenged folk who think this man and his party will do anything to help them are so foolish. The first thing they will see is the cutting back of social services for those who need them.

Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare will be targeted. All of these programs that help so many people, were created by the Democratic administrations of years past. How will it hurt us? Cutting out most of the labor force employed in these programs. Just like he did with the US Postal Service, the president-elect will cut back on employees, and we all can see what a mess our postal service is in now.  We get mail four weeks old if we get it at all. Eventually, that whole department will be gone. I am told by some postal workers that the Georgia system is the very worst. I have been told it is best to ship a large envelope by UPS if you need it to arrive on time.

The Department of Education is already on the chopping block. Does that mean the states will have no oversight? Local School Boards will go back to favoring the wealthy white people and the schools in the poorer neighborhoods will be using old second-hand worn-out books and facilities that are understaffed and undermaintained. I grew up with those kinds of schools in Albany, GA. If you want to know more, read Pat Conroy's book or see the movie made from it. 

I was a child and eventually a teacher when blacks and whites were segregated in schools. That would still be true if the Federal Government had not stepped in and passed laws so states like Georgia could no longer treat people of color so inhumanely. 

I don't usually voice my political opinions on my blogs. I don't hate my friends who voted differently than I did. My true friends are good people. Many men in my family, I'm sure, did not vote for the woman candidate for president. Sadly, some men who did not vote for Trump just didn't vote for either. 

I don't think I will live long enough to see a female president of the United States and I am sorry. But we have good men who could do a better job for the people than the one the voters put in office. Maybe they will step up next time. Maybe by mid-term elections, our citizens will have opened their eyes. 

I never thought I would see the day when a felon, a criminal, or a convicted sexual offender, would sit in the Oval Office. 

I am free to voice my opinion on my blog, and I will not publish nasty, mean or hateful comments so please don't waste your time.

People Need to Think Before They Speak

I raised my voice today in conversation with my physical therapist.

I remember a friend saying to me when we were young, "I look forward to being 80 years old." 

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you can say anything you want and get away with it."

It seems to me that today people don't wait until they are eighty years old. The young man who is supposed to help me breathe better during exertion, popped off to me and others in the room decrying "Obama Care." He followed that by stating something he had no doubt received in one of those circulating E-mails filled with half truths, if any truth at all. 

Before he got any further I told him in no uncertain terms that if he planned to talk politics, I was leaving. Taken aback, he tried to defend himself saying he was only talking about healthcare. But he wasn't. He had stated that the President had spent some outrageous amount of tax payer money to pay for playing golf with Tiger Woods. Since I have finally stopped my friends from sending those malicious emails to my box, I am not about to sit and listen to a person who knows nothing about what he is saying.

I did inform him that we had the lowest ranked health care in the civilized world and it was about time someone had the guts to stand up and try to do something about it. He laughed. "We do?"

Yes, I told him and after what my husband endured and I endured as his caregiver, I could vouch for that statement. 

"My wife had cancer and was treated right here and she had great care." He seemed confident that he had proven that our health care was tops.

I told him a bit about what we had gone through and how we ended up with me crying and begging a doctor to help us because my husband was in such pain and it was obvious that something terrible was wrong. Although we had been told his PET scan showed no cancer, his leg looked like he had leprosy, and we were being sent from one doctor to another, tossed back and forth like a ping pong ball. Thanks to our poor health care, my husband suffered and died earlier than he should have.

No, we do not have good health care in this country. And people like this young man is angry because some of the loopholes have been closed where people like him could play Medicare for more and more money. The rules have tightened and unless everyone plays by the same rules, we will have no Medicare. The system will have been fleeced out of all the funds by people like this man. 

The same people who scream that our Medicare premiums have gone up, are the ones who deride the Health Care Act which hopefully will bring down the fraud and misuse of our tax money. We are a selfish society in many ways. We want our Social Security and our Medicare. But the party that is wanting to cut back on our benefits is the same group that hates the President for trying to hold on to those programs and make them work.

I don't know if I can stand to be in the same room with this physical therapist three days a week for the next six weeks. I abhor narrow minded people who use words to harm others, when he has no idea what he is talking about.

To get the facts, click here.

Young Doctors - Mature Patients - Health issues

Young Doctors and Older Patients

By Glenda Beall in 2007



We live in an area with a large number of retirees, but it seems most of the doctors I see are all still wet behind the ears. I’ve lived with this body of mine for over a half century, but the young girl with the stethoscope sized me up immediately, and put on her smuggest smile as I recited to her all the ailments I sought medical help for in the past 10 years. No point in going back any further. I’ve tried that and I’ve seen the eyes glaze like a talk show host who has Bill Cosby for a guest. I could see the wheels turning inside that pretty little head, and I knew she was thinking about how fast she could get rid of me. The doctor wanted to hear about one symptom she could prescribe for right now, get me on my way, so she could get on to the next fifteen minute appointment.

I usually prefer women doctors as I think they might understand a woman’s particular problems better than a man, but a young man or a young woman has no idea what it feels like to be old enough to be a member of AARP. I’ve had medical assistants and nurses talk to me like I was five years old.

“Come on, Sweetie, come right in here.” She held my chart in her hand, but couldn’t call me by name. I’ve been seated between two technicians who acted like I didn’t exist as they talked over my head about shopping or people they both knew. That kind of behavior dehumanizes a person.

Now -- if I were frail and deaf and blind, maybe she would need to talk to me in a way that was different from the way she talked to the 40 year old who came in ahead of me. But I am an active, busy person with a schedule that keeps me going from morning until night. I have no hearing problem. I walk in under my own steam and I can see just fine.

In all the books, magazines, and online websites having to do with being a smart patient, it says take an active part in your health management. Talk freely to your doctor about what you want and need. When I do this, I get an “attitude” from some of the young doctors. It is almost like they are afraid I might know something about my own health that they don’t know, and they feel I’m challenging them. That is the last thing I want to do. Those of my generation have been taught to listen and do everything a doctor tells them to do. Sometimes that can be a big mistake.

An older friend of mine fell last week for no apparent reason. She didn’t trip. She didn’t break any bones. Just got up to go to the bathroom and fell in the doorway. After I talked with her, I found she was taking so many prescription drugs I’m surprised she could get out of bed. Besides two Atavan every day, she took Ambian and 50 mg of Elavil every night. And she couldn’t figure out why she felt so “tired” all day and had no energy.

It breaks my heart to see people, like my eighty-four year old friend, go to the doctor with no advocate by her side. Once she went in to have the batteries replaced in her pacemaker, but she was sent to the hospital for a replacement and an overnight stay. She had no time to prepare mentally or physically and the whole experience was traumatic for her.

“I have to do what my doctor tells me to do,” she said.

My husband Barry fired his doctor and I was proud of him. After a number of years with a man who truly seemed to understand older patients, he had to go to a new doctor in the same practice. Barry is a gentle and charming man, but this young fellow who was cold and unfriendly, told my husband, “At your age, you can’t expect to feel good.” Now Barry has a new doctor who is nearly as old as he is and they get along fine.

I refuse to become a victim of the medical world, but what can you do? If I had a heart attack, I’d need a doctor. If I develop serious symptoms, I need a doctor to diagnose my problem. But I’ve had three members of my family die, not from a disease, but from medical mistakes. One died from being prescribed the wrong drug. My father died from being over-sedated while sick with pneumonia, and one died, not from cancer, but from MSRA, the infection he caught while in the hospital.

My young, arrogant endocrinologist fires off questions so fast I can’t understand them. She doesn’t want to take time to listen, but just wants to pinpoint one symptom and go after it with ten thousand dollars worth of tests. Someday these sassy self-confident doctors will reach my age, if they are lucky. They will look back and realize they could have been a little more considerate and patient with the Medicare group who often don’t have just one problem, but have a number of things going on as time wears on us and eats away at our main frame.

I don’t know what is taught in medical schools these days, but I’m beginning to believe the TV shows are imitating life. The competition and ego evident in medicine is no different than in any business. I believe we have made great strides in caring for seriously ill patients with cancer, heart disease and specialty surgeries, and in other fields, but where are the doctors who want to treat the not so rare common aches or pains or help prevent them in the first place. Where are the doctors who understand why most of us have sleep problems and need a little help getting our rest so we can feel like volunteering at the Food Pantry the next day? What doctor listens when told I have piercing pain in my head for a few days once or twice a year and it has been going on for twenty years. I’ve been told it is some kind of neuralgia, but no one has identified it.

Do I have it now? No. But can I have something for the pain so I can endure it next time? No, just come to see me when it happens next time.

I don’t bother to tell her that it often happens in the night or on weekends or many times when she is not available. What good would it do? I’ll just go to the ER if I can’t stand the pain like I’ve had to do many times before.

I made the mistake of going to a doctor for congestion and a cough which had affected my voice so badly I could no longer sing in the church choir. Now, after three years, about twenty thousand dollars worth of tests, many chemicals ingested from the prescription medicine I’ve taken like a guinea pig, and after seeing three different specialists, I’m told I probably will just have to live with it. I didn’t need to be told, I had already figured that out.

But what can you do when the ENT doctor says the inhalers prescribed by the pulmonologist are causing the throat problem, but the endocrinologist says it is the thyroid gland causing the hoarseness? I want to do what one lovely gray-haired lady told me as we both sat in the waiting room of yet another young lady doctor.

“I just don’t go to doctors,” she said. “I’m only here to bring my sister who had a stroke.”

She smiled and appeared very pleased with herself. I was envious. Later, after seeing the doctor, when I made my appointment for an MRA and an MRI, I wondered what would happen if I fired all my doctors. After all the tests, I know I’m pretty healthy except for a few things I’ve managed for many years already. I know someone who goes to the public health department every so often and gets blood work done, but never sees a doctor.

My favorite medical person is a nurse practitioner who listens and really cares about her patients. I never feel like she is trying to get rid of me so she can get to the next appointment. She allows me to take a part in my own care. She understands when I tell her I know what I need to do about my diabetes, but I need her to order the blood tests. She understands when I get emotional about a loss, and she is sympathetic, not uncomfortable. She understands when I am frustrated with all the tests a specialist ordered which found absolutely nothing, and she assures me that I own my body and can make decisions whether to continue a treatment or not.

If she held seminars and taught some of these young doctors and nurses about bedside manner and how to interact with older people, our medical profession would be enhanced in this area. But who can tell a doctor anything? These fresh-faced kids come out of school already knowing everything ─ everything except how to recognize and respect the needs of older people.

A VENT AND RANT ABOUT OUR INSURANCE, OR LACK THERE OF

We have published 200 posts on this blog and they have been eclectic, as I promised. I've vented about the chemicals in all the products we use, the food we eat and especially the chemical fragrances that are in every single product made today.

Tonight I want to rant a bit about something I learned today that effects many thousands of us, but unless you are the one dealing with lymphedema as we are, you are not likely to know that Medicare doesn't pay for the expensive compression equipment needed to force the proteins and lymph fluid out of a limb and back into the channels that excrete it from the body.

Did you know that after radiation, most cancer patients suffer with horrible swelling in their limbs or in the body? The radiation used to try to shrink the tumor, destroys the lymph glands in the area. The arm or leg swells to gigantic proportions and causes extreme pain. Once the doctor who gives the radiation is done, the patient is on his own to search out someone who can help him with this painful condition.

We fortunately found a good lymphedema specialist, Ann Stone in Murphy, nearby and she has worked diligently two or three times each week, wrapping Barry's leg in multiple layers of compression material, but the progress is slow. Now he is bruising badly and she fears cellulitis could set it.

We have to bring out the big guns she said to us today. She brought in a long black boot that was deeply padded. This contraption is one of the best ways to force the fluids out of his leg, but it costs $2500 she said. We have Medicare and an excellent Medicare supplement insurance, but they will do us no good. Medicare doesn't consider this equipment necessary. I suppose they consider it a "luxury."

I told her there must be other choices. We finally settled on one that Medicare might pay if we meet all the criteria.

Now I'm ready to write letters and make my senators and congressmen aware of this ridiculous situation. My husband will have to fight this problem of lymphedema for the rest of his life. This is the what we hope to avoid when our Medicare fees are taken out of our paychecks. Who can fork over twenty-five hundred dollars in order to receive needed help that should be paid by our insurance companies - Medicare and our supplement? We pay premiums each month, and we expect those premiums to work for our benefit when we need them most.

I'm going to write and call those politicians I voted for and make them aware of this travesty. I hope everyone will do the same. It could happen to anyone at at any time.

Breast cancer victims, lymphoma victims, and many other cancer sufferers will develop lymphedema and will fight it as long as they live. Surely insurance could offer them the best care possible for fighting the pain.