Here is a story not so much fun to tell. It’s about being elderly in a world I don’t understand that troubles me daily with a myriad of minor irritations all melding into each other. The daily grind composed of dozens of annoyances, banal, trite, overall frustrating obnoxious. A somnambulant mist of denial seems to be ubiquitous regarding how the world has changed, how much is not working as it should. Technology has made us less efficient , when it was supposed to do the opposite. Sometimes I forget Siri is not a person and I vent my anger at her, a robot. Paying bills online is fraught with setbacks. Googling, a verb, is disturbed by placing the devise down, even delicately. Screens seem malevolent, anthropomorphic when the image disappears at the moment I need the information the most. Passwords that once worked, all of sudden change their mechanical minds.
It’s easy to place blame on the vast technological and industrial complexes, when it is also individuals who have slowly clogged up the system.
Remember the Tylenol murders of 1982 when one man tampering with the contents of the capsules began a change in packaging requiring opening up containers, oftentimes frustrating.
Insurance companies are blamed for the high cost and deterioration of our heath care system. It’s individuals too. A litigious public has driven up the costs of medical malpractice insurance which increased dramatically since 1984, even though 95% of lawsuits against doctors and hospitals turn out to be frivolous. Those high-priced claims still need to be responded to legally at a considerable expense.
At my age, I find myself in the maw of a voracious healthcare structure. Like many people, I find it shocking if a person answers the phone, an appointment beyond several months away is available and if the first question I am asked is not , “What kind of insurance do you have?” I once called a physician’s office and was put on hold with 27 calls ahead of me, waiting time 3.4 hours.
I was secretly told by a provider the insurance companies have limited the time spent with each patient to ten minutes to increase the daily profits.
I was referred to a specialist in New York City whose receptionist informed me the doctor did not take insurance. The co-pay the first visit, a tele-med appointment, would be $1,200.
Doctors are not necessarily the problem. Salaries have dropped, stress has increased, reimbursements continue to lower, there is more paper work and patients expect more emotional support from doctors than they did 30 years ago.
My primary care practitioner, Dr, Vigna at Highland Family Practice, is still a holdout. Dr. Hirdt in New Paltz is excellent, spends time, takes insurance and actually uses instruments to exam patients physically instead of asking a few perfunctory questions. So does Dr. Tack in Kingston, Dr. Erika Gabbriello and Dr. Aaron Warshawsky. There are many others navigating the complex balance between real compassionate care and the conditions mitigating against empathic thorough medical treatment.
Recently, I was informed that a physician I have been treated by through tele-med appointments for the last eight years would not be allowed to continue since the law changed. Now out-of-state patients would only be seen in person. The new rule would cause me to have to fly to the west coast. In an everyday magic moment (such moments are the subject of a new book I am writing) the doctor said, “You are no longer my patient. Now you are my friend. I will continue to be your doctor over the phone for no pay.”
A receptionist in another office gave me the wrong results from a blood test, called minutes later apologizing for her mistake. The contrition took me by surprise. I said, “I forgive you.” An instant moment of soft connection passed between us. These special moments of humanness, kindness, self awareness and love are like lights in difficult times
I am sure there are thousands of these occasions happening every day, everywhere. They are glowing in the dark. Do you remember the “connect the dots” art workbooks of the past? If there are enough magical moments, each with a small light, they will connect. Eventually, the darkness will be illuminated.
Dealing with the world as it is today and the inevitability we all need healthcare throughout life into the aging process, requires individuals to take care of themselves and others.
No matter how well you take care of yourself with diet and exercise, the right supplements and emotional poise, we will all confront the need to seek medical care eventually.
We can rage against the end as Dylan Thomas does in his poem, “Do not go gently into that good night.” But as my mother, Sylvia, often said in her unpoetic way, “No one leaves this world alive.”
In the meantime, life offers us daily to be a small light in the world, to understand the predicament and do our best. Even though there is no one there, I will practice being kinder to Siri when I bellow my irritated requests. It’s a good practice. We have to start somewhere.
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