Not sure if you are a praying person or not, but I try. If you don’t mind I’ll say a prayer for you and your wife. A sad story, that I imagine gets told every day. Obviously no one (usually) cares for our loved ones like we do, but it is terrible when it seems to overwhelmingly come down to the money. Whether it is our older folks and their health, or our kids and their schooling.
Especially hard to see a “fighter” go down. Again - my prayers for you and yours.
They are the 99%.
Our prayers will go out to you and your wife.
Chuckles,
Thank you for posting your painful story. It may be too painful for some to look at. Many may think this is not happening. It is. And daily.
The same thing happened to my father. I could not believe how fast they wanted to kill him. He went in to the hospital with a stroke that robbed him of the ability to speak. He could not speak for himself so they heavily sedated him. They then told me he was not responsive and would be put on only a saline drip and not fed.
My elderly mother had Power of Attorney so the doctors worked on her to let him pass on. I got ahold of the doctor and found out what drugs they were giving him. One drug was to dry him out so relatives would not hear the death rattle in his throat.
Because I did not have POA the doctor had little patience for me. I confronted him that he was starving my Dad to death in a slow, painful way to die. The doctor told me that as death approaches the body produces natural narcotics to dull the pain. If that were so why were they pumping him full of narcotics to immobilize him.
These death doctors work on the families to get the OK to starve a stoke victim to death. They are slick, lying and totally bloodless. They lie about what they are doing and lie to the family. They know who has POA and ignore the rest of the family members.
I asked the doctor why my Dad was not receiving treatment or therapy for his stoke. It was treatable. The doctor told me that my father was not a candidate for therapy. I asked why. I have a public safety background and know about protocols used in admitting patients. I was able to extract from him that there is a list of factors that need to be met in order for a patient to qualify for therapy. I asked if age was one of the factors. Reluctantly the doctor admitted to me it was. So if you are elderly and cannot speak you will be sedated and starved to death.
Chuckles, I am sorry for the loss of your mother. I know your grief and anger at how she was treated. I have faced it myself.
Be warned. A hospital is a very dangerous place to be if you are elderly or in some way incapacitated. If you do not have a strong, knowledgeable and determined advocate at your side you may well meet the same fate as my father and Chuckles' mother.
This got to me. They look at age and not the spirit of the person. My MIL had that same spirit. I'm so sorry. It's a warning for all of us, as it could be any one of us since this obamacare has already been implemented.
I’m so sorry; my prayers to you and your wife for your loss. May she RIP with God.
My God, what a story. Thank you for sharing this painful tragedy.
My mother died in 92 and the care was better then, that is only twenty years ago!
I am sorry you had to go through this. You have honored your mother by sharing this. Please know that your story also shares what a wonderful child you were to your mother. The love you had for her comes through in your sad tale,I am sure she was aware of your love for her.
May you find some peace and comfort. Its not easy, but you did everything you could for her. Hopefully with more stories shared like this, the senior voters will start waking up.
Bump
The received wisdom of those behind us that there are too many of us, we use too much of available resources, and things would be very much better if we disappear.
I there is any way to avoid a hospital stay, take it.
Medicare has always had death panels. It is government medicine.
Try to find a good doctor who takes Medicare patients... impossible.
That’s the future of O-Care.
Medicare has always had death panels. It is government medicine.
Try to find a good doctor who takes Medicare patients... impossible.
That’s the future of O-Care.
We all have our expiration date in this life. I lost Dad to a heart attack and Mother to Alzheimers. I was facing the prospect of her eventually becoming unable to swallow, and what that would mean - but then suddenly, she was gone.I just dont have an answer for when unlimited resources will do limited good. My only answer is to try to be more concerned about posterity than I am with dedicating my savings to my own inherently limited preservation. I do have some savings, but we all know that without insurance it takes serious wealth to be able to finance all the health care that will be helpful.
So what is my beef with ObamaCare? Simply that the government is horning into what should be private arrangements. Obama wants to make blue pill decisions for my wife and for me, but he doesnt even know or care what time zone Im in or what good I might be doing - or even what good really means (as a general rule Im pretty sure that killing babies doesnt qualify). ObamaCare intends to lead to single payer which is Newspeak for government control eliminating private choice. And as has been noted, we are pretty far along that path already with Medicare and Medicaid.
But the crucial point is that in America socialism is called progressive but it is no such thing. The Constitution has something to say about progress, and it doesnt have anything to do with the metastasis of government. What it does say (Article 1 Section 8) is that
The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . . "To focus the government on blue pill decisions is to focus not on progress but precisely on the status quo, taking the absence of progress for granted. The progress of science and useful arts over the past century has been such that an American secretary today would be ill-served to trade circumstances with Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria didnt have access to airliners or efficient automobiles, or anything made of plastic or much of anything in the way of electrical appliances which we all miss so much when the power goes down. She lived to be 80, but her husband died much younger and she was a depressed widow for a long time.All socialism does is share scarcity, not abundance. ObamaCare inevitably would help some people in the short run, but its main effect would be to stifle innovation in the long run. Increased government is not innovation; the Soviets had that for 70 years, and it did nothing for progress. SOCIALISM IS ABOUT POLITICIANS ARROGATING TO THEMSELVES THE CREDIT FOR WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO.
By your account, she was not the only fighter in the family.
Prayers up!
One issue which I am hearing about is that after 65 you have to use Medicare, all private insurance stops.
Now you may be able to pay, but you still have to use/apply for Medicare.
This is the GVT taking care of you.
My wife’s uncle died in a nursing home of a leg infection that they would not treat. He was 80 also. He was a retired postman and still had some financial resources but it did not matter. He did not have political resources.
My mom had a stroke in 2008 and they inserted a feeding tube.
After a day or so they ran tests and said she was not able to swallow.
The Dr told us she would go into a coma and would die in 3 days.
We were caring for her at her home (you lose a lot of rights when you allow government nurses to visit from time to time).
He stated he was going to remove the feeding tube and she was to go home and receive hospice care until her death.
This was the hardest thing ever for our family. She did slip into a coma.
We decided from the start that our mother was never going to be alone and there was always a family member at her side till the end.
She lived for 28 days without food and water!
My 2 sisters and I were there with her and about 15 minutes
before this happened my sisters dog came in the room (she had never done this before) and looked my mom's way for about a minute tranfixed. She got under the hospital bed
exactly right under my mom.
About 5 minutes before we realized my mom had passed the dog abruptly got up and turned and looked at my mom for about a minute and then left.
What was that all about I don't know.
The culprit, IMPO, is our loss of Judeo-Chiristian values, due in large part, to gub’mint via the separation of church and state myth. After that, factor in defacto gub’mint control of medicine already via dollars spent /not spent in medicare and medicaid. Finally, thanks to gub’mint, the devalued dollar combined with escalating medical costs (again, gub’mint and lawyers) tend to drive the economic sterility of a utilitarian policy philosophy.
Paging Doctor Peter Singer...paging Doctor Peter Singer...
Part of this problem may be the low reimbursement rates of Medicaid and Medicare - they cannot afford to provide quality care when paid so little. The major problem, though, is that employer based health insurance typically stops paying for your care past age 65, saying you have to sign up for Medicare.
A partial solution for individuals would be:
1. Don’t sign up for Social Security, so you don’t get stuck in Medicare / death-care.
2. Get long term care insurance so you don’t have to use Medicaid to pay for a nursing home (so better quality care in a nursing home).
3. Get private health insurance that covers you as an elder OR sign up for a medical sharing ministry (to meet insurance requirements) OR self-insure for medical costs (lots of savings).
I am so sorry for your loss. Prayers up to her, you and yours...