My beloved husband of 45 years has Parkinson’s, and almost died this past February. It appears that the Parkinson’s specialists overdosed him on the drugs used to control the symptoms of this.
My only comment is... that our present “ideation” on the chronic illnesses of aging is the use of drugs.
Most of these have horrible side effects. We go to the docs, hoping for relief from the incurable aging problems, and they feel obliged to prescribe whatever the pharmaceutical companies are selling.
It is too hard for them to tell us the truth, that many of these have no safe pharmaceutical fix. In other words, there is no “rose garden pill” when the body begins to wear out, and the side effects from the various drugs may be worse than the original complaint.
We have lost our souls, because we are searching the wider and easier path. This applies to all generations, young, middle, and old.
There is no longer any social contract. Child-bearing adults farm out their young to day care, so they can chase the “good life” of shopping for modern artifacts, while their parents are forced into senior communities, so the children can afford day care, two cars, and whatever is “au courant” at Williams Sonoma (or maybe a copy from Target).
We have truly lost our way.
i am sorry to hear of your husband’s ailments. prayers for him, you and your family. i think people who are ill need to have advocates who are keeping track of what’s going on - and willing to question the doc/s as to what and why. i agree, we have lost our way.
what really shocked me was when we went to the doctor with our friend. the doctor talked to our friend’s wife like he wasn’t even in the room. it felt more like a vet visit. the doctor said if our friend was removed from the drugs, he would become mean and sarcastic again. he was never mean - sarcastic, yes. that’s one of the things we loved about him and something he hasn’t gotten back - his sarcastic wit. i thought ‘oh, crap’. if sarcasm is considered something that must be controlled by drugs - i’m screwed.