lblanchard: (Default)
[personal profile] lblanchard
Unless your doctor retires.

Three physicians in Roy's primary care / internist practice have taken early retirement in the past two years, citing difficulties with Medicare / Medicaid. He says the wait for appointments is longer now and the wait in the office is longer as well. I look ahead to even more regulation in the years to come, plus the bulge in the python that is the baby boom, and can't see a happy outcome.

The gallows humor of my quip about my own health plan -- eat well, exercise, sty healthy as long as possible and then drink myself to death -- isn't sounding quite so funny to me today. I think I'll book a full physical and assessment for early in the new year and see how I'm doing. I picture myself having an old age like those of my great-grandparents' generation -- no medical care to speak of and a gentle fading away at home without a lot of fuss, feathers, and tubes. Except, of course, that the family safety net is no longer there. Well, perhaps I'll be like Aunt Bert -- climb the steps to my third floor bedroom one night, at age 96, and come down feet first in the morning.

I wonder whether I can include "nothing but palliative care" in an advance directive for the possibility that I might get placed in a long-term care facility. (*shudder*) I will have to ask my attorney when I rewrite my will in the next couple of weeks.

Date: 2012-11-08 03:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com
I believe you can...

Date: 2012-11-09 03:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lblanchard.livejournal.com
I sure hope so. By "long term care" I am thinking of (*shudder*) being warehoused for cognitive decline, which is a waste of space and resources.

Date: 2012-11-08 03:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pondhopper.livejournal.com
I wish with all my heart to go like your Aunt Bert did.

Date: 2012-11-09 03:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lblanchard.livejournal.com
In the house she'd lived in for 60-plus years. Me too except I won't live here that long and my bedroom is on the second floor.

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