Friday, August 14, 2009

Health Care thoughts

This issue is very emotional for me and we have great health insurance and have a great doctor it still matters to me to be honest it didn't much matter before May except we did want to be covered through COBRA because we thought our state coverage was not enough.

My mom in law didn't have health insurance after she retired but her doctor (same one we have) worked with her and got her meds through Walmart and seen her 6 months instead of the usual 4 till her medicare kicked in and it still wouldn't be easy for her she kept really good track of her sugar and watched her diet.

In 2000 they stopped at the house and said by the way your dad and I have made decisions Mike your in luck cause your the oldest and are in charge of everything and handed him papers they were their living wills and advanced directives and we want you to abide by our wishes and we became aware of what they wanted.

Although we didn't like what they decided we told them we would do as they wish my mom in law did not want cpr started no heroic measures at all no feeding tubes no tubes at all.

My sister in law stated that she would not obey the wishes when we were talking about this issue at a first aid cpr class we were taking. My mom in law stated that if Karen went against these wishes there would be hell to pay.

She always made us aware of what she wanted as loved ones passed we always joked with her that she was to stubborn to leave us and we needed her so she wasn't
going anywhere.

Fast forward to May when she wasn't feeling well for a couple days and we urged her to go the doctor she said no it would pass. My father in law put his foot down when she was clammy and sweating and took her to the er it wasn't a virus like she thought it was more serious it was pancrisitis and it caused her blood sugar to go way up then her kidneys shut down and it just got worse from there and she passed away a day before mothers day. She was 64 years old and had so many plans and so much life to live.

I implore everyone to talk to your elected officials not start riots not fear the government is out to kill us. Although I do believe medicare should pay for counseling to talk about the decisions before there is a crisis. In the state of Pa if you have a chance of recovery they can ignore your wishes which in this case they did when she coded. And talk to your loved ones about decisions and organ donation it was easy for Mike and his brothers and dad to agree what needed to be done cause they knew what mom wanted. Talk till your blue in the face even if they dont want to hear it it needs to be talked about.

This was a long post and I want to leave you with one more thought.

It was hard watching mom let go and we miss her terribly its heart breaking but its more heart breaking family fighting about what needs to be done or what ones wishes are.

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