[gleeaikin]

You have exactly restated my point, so I don’t know why you disagree. When our mechanic says we have a problem with our machinery, then we need to take responsibility for our bad driving habits or failures of preventive maintenance. And as with a car, sometimes there is no fix available. In my mother’s case she had a defective mitral valve replaced by a pig valve at age 78. It turns out these valves had a useful life of about 10 years. At 88 she was too frail for another surgery and thus died at 89 of congestive heart failure.

[BfloGuy]

Sorry. I guess I misunderstood you.

[TheOldLady]

The identical thing happened to my MIL.

She had her valve replaced at 57, and her health deteriorated when she was 66. I took her for consultations, and the doctors said that she wouldn't survive the surgery to replace the valve, and she died at 67.

We had her autopsied to see if the valve had failed. It had not. Her other, natural valve had failed, and she was in otherwise great shape and would have easily survived the surgery to replace both valves.

The Kaiser doctor (HMO - may Ted Kennedy rot in hell - this was not the first relative that I lost to Kaiser incompetence) killed her as sure as I'm sitting here.

This happened in 1996. I wonder if they were executing old people as early as that, you know, just to try out their system of extermination.