What do they really care about?

       If all the books on ‘How To Live” covering  pregnancy, birth, childhood, the teens, marriage, divorce,  menopause, et al, were tossed together they would overfill ten Grand Canyons.

Our lives could be spent, and not badly either, by referring to your choice of those books, and make certain you add Google, that godsend of knowledge,  to the list.  There’s a book for everything we might encounter and the info is very good. I once saw a doc turn and refer to his computer,  and wondered if he, too, Googled.

But there comes a time when suddenly there’s no one telling us how to cope with what’s happening in our lives.  At first we don’t notice, but  a big change has come, and sooner or later you’ll feel it. Google however, hasn’t changed and stays with us.  Bless them.

At about  60 I saw my mail change with a flood of opportunities on ‘how to invest my money’, ‘vacation tours for mature people’, hearing aids, face lifts, 24 hour dental replacements, and on and on, but where I really got hit smack in the face,  was in the doctor’s office. I had become a non-person.

I was about 65 when I first saw how Senior Citizens are ignored.  Not even heard,  much less questioned.  It seems that there are now three books.  “The Sixties”.  “The Seventies”, and then, “Eighties and Over”.  They are required study for every doctor, and I’d bet the renewal  for their yearly license (or whatever) comes with a place for a signed statement that those three Bibles have been mastered.

Today, when you step into a doctor’s office, they glance at  the birth date,  and from then on its one-line service. Arthritis?  Taken for granted;  Blood Pressure? Over or under, they ‘know’ it’s wrong.  It comes with your age, and if you querulously mention what you came in for, don’t be surprised to find you’re ignored.

They have YOUR book memorized, and if this is your birth date, this is what the book says you will have.  Period.  No discussion needed.  Amen. Next patient.

One doctor had me enrolled in classes for Chronic Pain, before I entered    the office, or even one query made. I was not even asked why I had come. And the last words when I was politely ushered out, were a reminder of those Chronic Pain classes.  Why I had made the appointment had been casually brushed aside, and  the first thing I did upon arriving home was to call and cancel the unneeded classes and then go to Google to find the answer to what the doctor ignored.  And it was there, too. TYG.

Say your prayers that it doesn’t happen to you, but I went to Emergency one night (there’s no other way to get a doctor in a hurry) and suddenly was  caught in an assembly line of tests and assumptions that were crazy.  Yes, tests are necessary, but for hang nails???  Migraine???

But, I emphasize,  once they see  your birth date, you’re wheeled from test to test until they tell you that you have none of that. and then prescribed a nice medium-strength  Diazepam to ‘calm your nerves’ and that is that.  Yeah, good ole Valium  (under whatever name) will keep you nicely dulled, and with no mention that is addictive.

You better get used to the idea, for if you’re over 65, you’ve entered the huge group of those who no longer matter.  Yeah, read that again.  No longer matter. There’s  no future (read money)  for them with your age group.  A waste of their time.  So give them a pill (addictive?)  Doesn’t matter. Send you home, and bring in another ‘customer’ with years of potential office calls still ahead.

We are part of a generation  who are not stupid and know that today’s medical plan might be very good for those up to 60, but  is useless for those over.  It wasn’t ever meant for us.  And they know it.

This last year, after about 30 plus hours in a hospital bed, with a needle  constantly in  my arm, and during which nurses entered,  but not one doctor entered my room,  when suddenly a young man entered with two papers in his hands.  “Here is your release. Go on home. Here is a prescription.  Good luck”, and was gone.   A doctor???  Who knows.  Probably one of their Peons, (as one-such quietly introduced him/her self to me)  “We Peons  just do errands” he/she said, “and will be fired if caught speaking to a patient”.

My friend Dawna says it’s the same if you’re overweight.  Doesn’t  matter if  she goes for an ear ache, hang nail or some OBGYN  problem,   its always her weight to blame. I don’t know about that one, but I believe her, and maybe the doc’s have the Fourth Book, called Overweight, and use it as fiercely  as the above three mentioned.

I know that good things have happened as a result of  the nation’s health care  program,  but not for those over 65, or overweight.  And if  you think not, just wait and see.  It’s an expensive program, and you’re going to die soon anyway, so get another customer in here who has many years (read money) ahead of them and hurry up about it, too.

ethelbrad@comcast.net

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After putting out on the golf course, I saw him putting his club back in his bag.  Of course he has the presence of mind not to open his presents early.  The main entrance to the tent was reserved for contest entrants.  They were entranced with the prospect of winning.

Now go enter some more under the ‘Hour’ Crazy Language tab . . .