You'll Never Take Me Alive

Saturday I woke up with chest pains, again, a reprise of something that had been randomly going on for over a week. This time it really hurt. Maybe it's not indigestion or asthma!? All week, I'd been gobbling aspirin, tums, eating little, drinking pedialyte and nibbling bananas thinking perhaps I was dehydrated or had low potassium. I check my peak flow find that the asthma is pretty much as it always is. My pulse is fast (of course, now that I've scared myself) but it also is skipping beats and rattling around. Whaaat? Then I think "If I die from a heart attack, they won't let me in the pearly gates for being stupid." So I called my son Dave.

Dave says he is coming after me and to call 911 if anything gets worse. Yup, I was going to drive myself, just what your NOT supposed to do. Then it went through my mind that I'd be embarassed for the neighbors to see me getting carted off in the Medic van, and does that get paid for by my insurance? Where did my common sense go? So I took two aspirin and found a book to take with me. I unlock the door and sit at my computer to distract myself and what comes up? A cartoon of a guy peeping out his mail slot at the grim reaper. He says "You'll never take me alive," and the reaper replies, "OK." Now I'm laughing, how cosmic is that? We are our own worst enemies.

David dropped me off at the ER and went to park the car and I checked in. I got scooted right in and wired up. I wanna go home. Dave comes in and entertains me and the whole ER staff while I'm getting EKG's, nitro glycerin, giving blood samples, and having a chest x-ray. He can be very funny. I have not had a heart attack; I am not having a heart attack! YEA! I may have GERD (Gastric Reflux) and, my blood pressure is low, my temp is 3 degrees below normal, and I have a persistant arrythmia. They hook me up to a heart monitor and check me in for a night of observation. My son Chris comes in and spends the evening with me until I go to bed, well, go to sleep, I am stuck in bed. The MD says my heart looks healthy but they don't know what the arrythmia is. The end result is I am now home on a beta blocker and Prilosec and have to go back to the doctor next week. I also have a bottle of nitro glycerin for pain with instructions to come back if three tries with the nitro doesn't stop it. Actually, not come back, call 911. No driving myself or waiting around.

Here's the warning signs for heart attack, stroke, or cardiac arrest. Call 911, do not pass go, do not collect $200 and don't drive yourself. You may, like myself be lucky, attack free, but the most frequent symptom of heart attack is not pain, it's death. So be grateful if you get some warning and hustle up some help.
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/Conditions_UCM_305346_SubHomePage.jsp

I am grateful that it turned out this well. I hope this isn't permanent, and I hope I find out exactly what it is. Excepting occasional emergencies, I've lived well with lifelong asthma, this last year I learned to live with Type II diabetes and have gotten down to half the meds for that and lost about 25 pounds. I may have to learn to live with something else but now I've had some practice. Meanwhile I am so grateful for my children, my two sons and my beautiful daughter-in-law. What is truly beautiful about them all is their hearts and their caring. Love you bunches kiddies.

Health Insurance

I had thought to ponder the proposals for taxing health benefits after watching the news and reading some commentaries. The more I read the more confused I got. Representative Thomas Petri, a Republican from Wisconsin and George J Mitchell, Democrat, Maine are proposing to limit the deductibility of medical benefits and insurance premiums. Like everything else lately the more I read the more I have to read, what a can of worms.

The proposal would for instance provide, as I understand it, a every family of four a yearly voucher worth about $1,800. My Medicare and medigap cost me about $4,800 for one person. The brief time that my sister's young family had to be on COBRA it was over $800 a month or $9,600 anuually some years ago. My single son has insurance he pays for with his employer in Oregon. It only covers up to $5,000 or $10,000 a year depending on which option you chose. And, it has a permanent pre-existing condition clause which means he has to pay for his Type 2 diabetes expenses out of pocket. Yet, he and others like him, are not counted in the numbers of Americans who are not insured at all. I don't believe it covers preventive care either, even though there is mounting evidence that it pays off not only in good health returns but dollars saved as well.

The fine state of Washington last year said that it takes a $10 an hour job to support one person here. That's a yearly salary of $20,800 and won't support a family of four here. They'd need housing assistance and would probably have to visit the food bank for starters. That won't buy good insurance or even mediocre insurance here. Mitchell's proposal says "it would be a good start for a working-poor family with an income of, say, $12,000 that pays no income tax." Not true. That $1800 isn't a "good start;" the family who received that in Washington wouldn't be able to use it. No cash to complete the deal. Which one of them will give up eating to make up the difference?

Our health care is in desperate shape for sure. I am one of the lucky ones so far, decent coverage and bucks to pay for it. Many elderly people are not. I have friends didn't sign up for Part D didn't take it as it is inadequate for their prescription needs, the money it costs is better put into the meds they need. Forgive me for lack of sparkling analysis but still. this needs to be watched by all of us.