One more intuition about medical care...

While visiting with my mother on Friday in her new l bedroom apartment...I answered a call from her Dr. (one of them) it was a taped recording reminding her of her appt. today and then adding "if there is balance due bring it with you so we can care for you."  My father who had the same Dr. hated that message, the implication being we can't care for anyone who is not paid in full..."  Oh, to call for the ambulance to take me to the Hospital from Trinity Towers West where I live (less than a mile) costs $500.00  Needless to say I will hitchhike.  Health care in this country is nonexistent, unless we can show them the money... Walgreen's Pharmacy recently sent residents here that medications will no longer be delivered (takes two hours a week) because we are 'NOT COST EFFECTIVE"  Nice mood I am today...and the Dr. tells me 'not to worry'...seems like the REAL DR. once said it as well...Shalom

The Healing power of ???

What makes you sick?  the list seems endless!  I am reminded of the man in the Bible who has friends bring him to the pool day by day...I've been thinking a lot lately about sickness - as I have struggled with this and continue to do so.The list as I said goes on and on:  politics, the daily musings of murders in the community, the traffic, the gossiping neighbor, and the list of physical ailments...  I read this week of the death of a woman on the Vineyard who lived up Spring Street from Phyllis, Heather, Jennifer and I.  She appeared on the front porch one night with her youngest daughter, both had been crying...

Their son and brother was near death ...and they came, even though they didn't go to Church because they had "heard" about the caring I had shared with Joel Counsel who had died recently.  They had heard that I was the only one who had visited him in the Hospital and that unbeknownst to me, I had driven him from the PO up to town and then dropped him off at his home...When the fire alarm sounded 1/2 hour later it didn't dawn on me...

Joel had gone into his home, poured gasoline all over himself, and burnt to death...He , like Tim, had Aids but by burning to death he didn't become "one of those..."  I went with Judy and Stacy to visit Tim, and prayed with them, and when he died I , like I did with Joel, did his funeral at the graveside...  Some of the well-meaning Baptists and other Christians asked of me "why do you do this? aren't you afraid you will catch it?"  I asked of them a question that is heard too much these days, but understood so little...'WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?"  

I am caught between a rock and a hard place...since having the stroke I have been on what has been called 'life saving medicine."  Each of these medicines that I take 'to keep me living" have side effects which are perilous to my well being.  One Dr told me "you are depressed."  My psychiatrist disagrees...another's answer was to punch into his laptop computer prescriptions for more medicines which add to the problem...the oncologist suggests that I see a gastroenterologist, and then this Dr. and that Dr.  (it goes without saying that each of these will find something wrong in their particular area) 

I wonder...if any or all of the medicine is helpful at all?  except to support a health industry which has run amok.  I mean, what will all the cancer Drs. do if they find a cure for cancer????  Might be they would have to drive a Ford instead of a Lexus...  Don't get me wrong...I think that some medicine IS beneficial, but not much, not all.  I am facing a difficult decision...a biopsy of a growing mass is too risky...yet I am told that no surgeon will operate without the biopsy... I asked the Dr. what do you know that I don't?  when the reply was 'nothing', I decided that I would step back and pause and listen to the Great Physician...either way I will find healing...

Anticipation...

It hardly seems 35 years ago, but it IS.  Heather had flown to Florida with my parents!  It was cold and snowy in Bainbridge, NY.  Though Phyllis had started dilating early in the week, I was convinced that we would go BEFORE Sunday.  Sunday morning at 6:00AM as my alarm went off Phyllis said 'LET'S GO"  I had arranged (just in case) for a Substitute Preacher - and off we went. 

In the middle of the Worship hour, JENNIFER LYN arrived to join our family...and I called the Church to bring the Good News...how times have changed.  Nowadays, fathers are allowed to stay with their wives at the Hospital...I was allowed into the delivery room, and then ushered out only with the support of Dr. Porcarelli, and much to the nurse's dismay...

Little did Phyllis and I know on that blustery Sunday morning, that we would be truly blessed in having two beautiful, talented, compassionate daughters, but we shouldn't have been so surprised through the years considering who their mother was...Jennifer, surely a Star is dancing in the Heavens as we celebrate this day you were born, and you and your sister Heather remind me so very much of the wonderful person that your mother was...  Happy Birthday!!!