Change comes whether we want it to or not, especially when you are a senior citizen. I learned that once again when my wife had her fourth heart attack recently. This one was worse than the three others combined. These four weeks in a hospital and rehab center left me with a new perspective on priorities, relationships, and selfishness. I will talk about all three in future posts, but this one is about too much confusing data and no one to help in figuring it out.

I thought I was prepared for another health event for my wife. After all she has had more surgeries that I can even remember, but it seems one can never really be prepared. Too much going on at one time to be able to make serious deliberated decision so quickly. My Aspie traits demand that I look logically at every event and make decisions based on the facts available to me. But, that process doesn’t seem even remotely possible in these type of situations, especially since I am also deaf.

Part of the problem is likely today’s American version of healthcare. Plainly speaking, it is hectic and confusing. In the past we used to interface with just one doctor in each field. For my wife’s two weeks in the hospital, there were four different cardiologists giving their opinion of how things are going. When a large corporation took over private healthcare in my State, they were formed into groups. There are six doctors now in one practice, all on salary by the corporation.

The same goes for the doctors evaluating her life-threatening gall bladder infection. Some mentioned “surviving the night”, some didn’t. I was told that all the different specialities were conferring with one another, but I suspect it was only through the common database that they share. There were a couple of doctors who looked in on her who I have no idea of who they were or why they were even there.

I naively thought her Primary Care Physician would oversee all these specialists, but I was told that he would not even be informed that she was even in the hospital until after her release! And, even then when we had an appointment with him a few days later, he just didn’t seem interested in helping us to understand the best options! I don’t know if universal healthcare will solve any of these problems? Maybe I need to get over my “Dr. Marcus Welby” view of the world, and realize that we are own our own now when it comes to healthcare. It is just not like all the stuff you see on television.