Our health care system is ill...

Medicine is growing by leaps and bounds. It’s a great thing – and also a scary thing. Mistakes are being made and sometimes they are not even being caught.
Cases in point –
A girl friend of mine was hospitalized last week for a suspected cardiac problem. The first evening, her doctor [not her regular family physician] ordered a blood sugar level. They came to draw it while she was having dinner. A few hours later, the doctor came by and told her she was diabetic because her blood sugar was elevated. No kidding, Sherlock! She tried to get him to understand that she was not diabetic, had never been diagnosed as a diabetic, and had no symptoms of diabetes [she’s also a nurse]. He wouldn’t listen to her.
The next day, when he was discharging her, this same doctor wrote her a prescription for Glucophage, blood sugar lowering medication. My friend threw the prescription away. But what if she hadn’t? What if she had taken it and her blood sugar plummeted? She lives alone. Her Rottweiler doesn’t know how to dial 911.
Another case –
Another friend was hospitalized last week for day surgery. She is allergic to Codeine. It was listed on her chart. What did they send her home with as a pain killer? Percocet! It contains a drug similar to Codeine. Did she take it? Yes. Did she know the potential problem? No. Did she have a reaction? Yes, and had to be rushed back to the ER with a drug reaction.
The morale of this story – question everything. Don’t be afraid to be labelled a pain. It’s your life or that of your loved one. Get a second opinion. Look things up yourself. There are great resources on the Web now. Don’t take any medication that you don’t know the ingredients of. Yes, health care is becoming better but it's also getting less and less personal. You have to be an advocate for yourself and those you love.

"The Savages"

I came across an ad for a new movie that was just released called The Savages. It isn't playing locally heremin Phoenix and I'm sorry to see that. With only a limited engagement it's not going to reach a wide audience and it seems like a film that needs to be seen. It's about two adult children facing their father's poor health and having to place him in a nursing home.
This is something that my generation is going to be facing over and over and over again.
In fact, I'm giving a talk about this next month. My current book Second Chance [www.secondchancenovel.com] has this topic as its subplot and my new book [still under construction] is partly about that, too.
Calling us the sandwich generation is trite because the phrase has been used so much but it's true. We're being squeezed from both sides and it's tough.
We have no point of reference. We've never encountered these issues before. And, let's face it, seeing our parents grow old and feeble makes us face something we have never, ever wanted to acknowledge before - we are getting older.

Must be present to win

Don't ask me why but this phrase popped into my head this morning at 4 AM as I was rolling over and trying to go back to sleep. Must have been part of a forgotten dream but for some reason the phrase stuck with me.
How many times have we heard that phrase when entering a contest? I know for me it was always a turnoff. I have to be there? Shoot! Can't they just mail me my prize? Why must I sit through something I wouldn't have just to win something? None times out of ten, I wouldn't enter then. Too much work.
"Must be present to win"... sounds like a great title for a book [and I am hereby officially calling dibs on this one. It's mine.]. But I think it's also a great metaphor for life.
Call it Zen, call it practical but it hit home for me. We can't go through life just going through the motions and expect anything great to happen. You really have to be "present" in order to do anything that's going to be worthwhile.
In the vernacular of my youth - "Far out!"
I have been putting in more effort lately to make some life-long dreams a reality and it's working. I had done this "half-assed" in the past and didn't get very far. I see now that I needed to be "present" and make a concerted effort if I wanted to see the best outcome, not just an okay outcome.
Far out, indeed!

Giving

I just finished Pres Bill Clinton's new book Giving. Fantastic book!
Years ago, in her book Passages Gail Sheehy talked about the decades of the 50's and 60's of a person's life as being the ones where we would reflect and give back. Now the Boomers have arrived and are doing exactly that.
Pres Clinton's book gives some very good ideas and suggestions. How wonderful this planet would be if we all did even just a little bit of what he suggests.

The heat has broken and the nights are definitely cooler. Fall is here. While it's not quite like the Falls we had back East, it's beautiful nonetheless.
We're looking forward to sitting on the deck at night with a log in the chiminea and looking at the stars.

Well, we Arizonans deserve a medal. We have broken the record for the most days over 110 degrees in one summer.
We're happy. We're proud.
We're hot and ready to pass the honor to someone else.

Jerry

I sit here with tears in my eyes as I write about the passing of my friend's husband. I didn't know Jerry well but the short time that I knew him told me what a compassionate, sincere person he was.
My heart goes out to his wife and family. He fought a brave fight against cancer and his spirit will live on in his writing, the love he gave, the memories of him.
I can't imagine the feelings of loss his family is feeling now. I pray God's love helps them through this hard time.