An Apple a Day

Since I retired last year, though I'm looking for a new career, I have thought many times about health care. Our current president has not improved the situation, but, if anything, has made things worse. I will not go into politics here, but rather will only comment on the state of things as I see them.

When I retired, I was able to keep my same health insurance, a great blessing to us since there are still 4 of us living at home. At age 65 most insurance drops off so that Medicare can take over. Correct me if I'm wrong, but why would your insurance make you go to less coverage at the time of your life when you seem to need medicines and doctors most. My parents and in-laws pay 3-5 times as much as I do on prescription medicines each month.

I was reading the Bible and came across a scripture that shows that the problems with doctors are as old as time. Referring to the woman with the issue of blood that touched Jesus' garments and was healed, Mark 5:26 says that she "had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse."

A good friend of mine is currently in the hospital awaiting treatment that will actually fix his problem. He started with an aortic aneurism, had leakage from the stent, has now suffered a punctured esophagus and has been told he has too much scar tissue for a feeding tube while his esophagus would heal. There is still or again leaking of blood internally which puts him on a slow decline into anemia. While the medicos confer with each other and him, he is closer to passing from this life every day.

Over the nearly 4 months my friend has been fighting for his life, I can only imagine the medical bills that are accumulating. My friend, my parents and I are all in agreement that we’d rather not ever go through another surgery. It would be nice if we could avoid the need just by wishing it be that way.

Paul Harvey used to always say, “There’s no sense worrying. None of us are going to get out of this world alive.”

Good thing that the pains and sufferings in this life are so temporary and that eternity is free from all of that.

Got to go eat my every day apple,

Twist

Sorry, About That...

As our stake is converting over to the new member involved cleaning of the buildings, our family was selected as one of the first to start the program. We have cleaned the building before, but not to the extent that is now the program. The list of those to clean during June has been on the bulletin for the past several weeks. We duly noted the cleaning and time on PDAs, calendar and notes. Our turn was Saturday at 9am. Three families are scheduled each week to clean, one from each ward. The cleaning is well organized and well planned. Unfortunately it was not well reminded, at least to us. Due to a neighborhood garage sale at Jenni’s area then temple service later we totally forgot about the cleaning until 9pm. We hurried over to the church, just in case no one had cleaned, but found it done very well. Helen and I agreed, we owe a couple of families a plate of brownies. I advised the Bishop of our dereliction of duty and promised to do better in the future.

Guess we’ll get out the baking pans and mixes,

Twist