Win Lose Draw

This is what the Mississippi River looked like in my neighborhood today as it experienced its scheduled drawdown. I think I read somewhere that it's so the infrastructure of the locks and dams can be inspected. Meanwhile there were flocks of gulls and human onlookers. Many people seemed to be treasure hunting.

 

I watched a crew of workers pull bikes and scooters out of the muck with ropes and hooks.

There was an immense tangle of stuff, including the metal box below. The workers tried for a few minutes to open it--to no avail. The whole situation seemed bleak to me despite the volunteers from the park service talking with visitors about the river and its original configuration before the sawmills, and the flour mills, and the shoring up of the ruined falls. All the while, the evidence of current stupidity and ruination is poking up from the mud. Hundreds of plastic water bottles, trash of every imaginable kind, including the Nice Ride rental bikes and the rental scooters that are a plague for pedestrians on city sidewalks. The pile above represents only five minutes or so of work. I suppose this went on for hours. We're a disaster, we humans. 

I hope someone found treasure. Gold, or silver, or a box of something precious. 

When I got home I opened the bill from my kidney procedure. 20,800 and some dollars--not including the doctor's visits and the testing beforehand. Because I have a Medicare Advantage plan that I pay 99 dollars a month for, all but 250.00 dollars of that was covered. I'll bet our president's care for his Covid hospitalization totaled a quarter of a million. It's disgusting that so many people do not have decent health care or insurance of any kind--especially during a pandemic. These United States are so far into the muck, I fear we may never get out. 

BUT I have cast my ballot. And I do hope for change.

You might as well let go and enjoy the ride.

My younger brothers and me

In this picture I'm not the one looking resigned to being hurled down the slide, but I felt like I was at the top of a steep and rather slippery slope when this:

arrived in the mail a couple of days ago. In a couple of months I can put it to use. Hope I get a chance to wear it out. And I hope we have Medicare for all before I leave this planet. The ups and downs of my health insurance post-divorce were just plain stupid. Why do we still have our health insurance tied to our jobs? 

In other news it rained here again last night. And it's still humid. I've used my air conditioner three times in three days--before then it didn't get used at all. It was just a place to set stuff. 

Report from Pillville: Read This.

I do a lot of self care. Today it was yoga. And a little drumming. Thank you Yoga-by-the-Sea.

Aid-in-Dying Laws Are Just a Start

I'd pull out a quote or two, but really you ought to just read the article. All of it. When you get to the part about how much Medicare pays for what, have a box of kleenex and a bucket ready. It's sickening and sad. If I were in the mood for a crying jag, I'd just read that paragraph over and over. I ask myself how in the world we got on this train. Well, it's a money train.

I used to be horrified at my mom's lack of personal awareness and responsibility for her health. Smoking: "Something's gotta kill you." Drinking: "I've never been drunk." (Hahahaha) Exercise: "All that moving around makes me seasick." Diet: "There's not a damn thing wrong with white sugar." The list of surgeries and procedures she's had is as long as her arm. Until recently her list of medications was as long as her other arm. She's racked up a tab with Medicare that ought to win her some kind of prize. Except that would be wrong.

As I've witnessed the loss of more of her abilities, as she's lost most of her desire to engage socially, I wonder what loss will be next. Will she go through another period of excruciating pain? If she lives another month, another year, will she be able to walk--even from the bed to the bathroom? She can't hear much even with hearing aids. She can't remember how to crochet, and I don't think she can really read. Today she couldn't think of the name of the bird she likes best.

During her last hospitalization, when a CT scan turned up a new tumor in her lung, the doctor who delivered this news was young and confident. "You'll want to set up a consultation with an oncologist," she said. I restrained myself from shouting, "Are you fucking kidding me?" My mom has been in what the article refers to the "gray zone" for some time. I do not want to extend her time there. And neither does she. Her advance directive emphatically states that she wants no more surgeries. I think it should be a doctor's job to present to a patient like my mom that she has the right to do nothing, to ask if she has an advance directive (I think it's been scanned into the system at the hospital she was at,) and to read that advance directive.

Three years ago I had some pretty rosy ideas about moving my mom in with me for the last portion of her life. I can't say that I regret my decision. I'm tired to the bone some days, but despite my previous post, I don't see a way to quit. Nor can I conceive of a better option. She's trapped. I'm trapped. But the biggest and baddest surprise was the system. The way she'd lie on a gurney for 12 or 10 or 16 hours in the ER before being admitted, the way she'd be pumped full of antibiotics whether or not there was a clear reason for it, the way she'd be completely debilitated upon every return home after lying in bed with only a 10 minute therapy walk (if it was a good day,) the way most of the staff in the hospitals and doctor's offices never seems to know that she's hard of hearing, the way a weak arthritic person in the hospital can't actually open anything to eat it or drink it, the way I'd come home with an impossibly frail person in the evening on a Saturday or a Sunday on very short notice and then have to go out to get a prescription filled. And the pain. Sure, the system as we know it will keep you alive, but they won't prescribe a decent pain killer at a dose that will provide relief because doctors are worried about being accused of over-prescribing.

Yes, there are good things that happen each day. I recognize them, honor them, celebrate them. And I am profoundly grateful for hospice. But mostly the gray zone is not a happy place. Life is eroding here, inch by inch and it's a real and painful thing. More and more, I do not hold this woman with an 8th grade education responsible for the choices she's made about her health. She's the sort of person who worships doctors. "I've always taken my pills just like they've told me." My pointing finger is moving away from her and zero-ing in on that fork in the road with the sign that proclaims life is better than death no matter the misery, no matter the cost.

These Are Suitcases

Yes, bathed in the morning light, here lie the implements of travel.

It is quite possible that I'm delusional, but on Saturday I'm planning to fly my with mother to the east coast where we will be fetched from the airport by my brother. The very large suitcase in the rear of the above photo will be jammed to the brim because my mom is going to stay at my brother's place for a month while I take two the smaller suitcases and head off to Alaska with a friend for two weeks.   I do not know the details of our planned travels with  a local chapter of the Sierra Club since my friend made all of the plans and I have yet to read any of the details. Hiking boots. I need those. Rain gear. Yoga pants. Because part of the trip involves a cruise and there will be yoga. And dancing shoes. There may be dancing on the ship. I may dance everywhere.

In order for this to happen, we must sign my mother out of hospice. (Medicare does not allow more than one hospice transfer in any given benefit period.) But the new medication regimen will remain in place, and that seems to be the element that has turned the tide. The tide is such a fickle thing, so I'll focus on something else. Like how I will turn around and fly back here 48 hours after I arrive at my brother's house, so that I can then drive to my friend's house in L.A. and fly with her to Alaska.

Right now my mom is shuffling in and out of her room looking at the suitcase I've set in the hall outside her door. "Socks," she's muttering. Pills, I'm thinking. Who cares about socks?

Birds, Bullshit, Sunshine, and Santa

It's a beautiful day full of birds and sunshine here in Pillville. The buffleheads are buffle-ing. the hummingbirds are hummering. My mother's bruises are transforming from purple to green. She's busily pinning out her snowflakes and starching them.

Bufflehead ducks wintering here from the far north

Hummingbird at our kitchen window

The one-armed snowflake maker at work

I see the same look of concentration here in Vermeer's famous painting The Lacemaker

And me? In just a bit the nurse who does the intake for the caregiving agency will arrive. Better than Santa and his eight tiny reindeer, if you ask me. I spent all morning trying to log into my mom's credit union accounts--let's just shorten that story and let me say that experience made big banks look really, really good. It took weeks for one of credit unions to really fess up that the problem was on their end. They had to add my i.p. address so I could log on. Whaaaat? And the other lost the Power of Attorney paperwork and would not speak to me since my mom could not understand the person on the phone who was hell-bent on verifying her identity. Oops. I didn't make the story short, did I? But I feel better now. Thanks.

And I'd like to feel even better, so let me just remind the great Interwebs and everyone out there that here under the GREATEST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD (cough, cough)  Medicare does not cover dental work, eye glasses, hearing aids, or custodial care. I feel fabulous now. Thanks.

My antidote to that bullshit is going to be Christmas lights. Everywhere.

Report from Pillville: The cardiologist, the neurologist, and Rx for mail and paperwork

My mom, center, 15 years or so younger than I am right now. Me, lower right.

My mom will be 90 in September. I've known for sometime now that her junk mail needs to be spirited  away before she sees it. Those of you who might have elderly parents living on their own whom you suppose are doing fine, this is a cautionary tale. Check around for commemorative coin collections the next time you stop over for a cup of tea. Then have a seat while you consider how much coinage was spent on these pieces of junk. In my house here's an entire shelf in a large antique armoire devoted to these scams that prey upon the elderly. I think my mom has forgotten that she's ever purchased these, so we don't have to discuss why she shouldn't purchase any more. Thank god.

The real mail, I assumed, was getting filed in the file box in her room. There isn't much, but I have noted over the past couple of months that the to-be-filed pile was growing. When the late notice came from Master Card, I had the confirmation I needed that my mom was in over her head. "I don't know what these papers are," she said. She can't tell a bank statement from a credit card statement--which is why I'm now in charge of that (lord, help us all.) So I spent a little time filing today. It wasn't hard. I assured her it was all organized. Nothing overdue. Everything put away. "Good," she said. "These papers...I can't...My head is full of other things. I just don't know what things."

"No worries," I said as all of the Committee to Preserve Medicare stuff went into the recycling. Really, I think I should be the one worrying about preserving Medicare--not my mom.

And meanwhile, last week's visit to the cardiologist was uneventful. Her heart is a 90-year-old heart. Not much else to say.

"Any violence?" the neurologist asked me when we went to see him the next day.

"Violence?" I asked. Apparently things can get nasty as cognitive decline sets in. My mom seems to be getting sweeter. She's forgotten a lot, but not how to be nice. Not how to love me. And she loves everyone who visits. She loves their clothes, their pretty hair, their tattoos, their dogs. Everyone, to her, is just the most marvelous guest ever.

Report from Pillville

This week's wrap-up:

The vascular surgeon: My mother quit smoking 17 months ago. This means that, given her post lung cancer ration of 10 cigarettes a day, she has consumed approximately 5,100 fewer cigarettes than she would have if she still smoked. Unfortunately, the circulation in her legs and feet is worse than ever. The good news is that she's in less discomfort than she used to be. For whatever reason, she's not regularly waking a couple of time per night with pain in her feet. On the advice of her doctor, we are watching and waiting.

The cardiologist and the chemical stress test: First the I.V.. Then the injection of the "special medicine without side effects that won't make you feel any different, but will allow detailed pictures of your heart." Okay. Then 3 glasses of water---this was more difficult for my mother than the I.V. Then the imaging which has to be done while the patient remains silent and lies perfectly still with arms above the head. Then another test. Then a break for lunch and a nap in the car. Then another set of images in the same uncomfortable position. Total time: 5 hours.

For me that equalled a lot of time reading email and scrolling through Facebook. And then there were the magazines:

Somebody in that office has a life when the lab coat comes off!

And now for the final story in Pillville tonight. The doctor's office again failed to successfully complete the paperwork required by Medicare for the hospital bed.

The medical equipment place called me yesterday afternoon to tell me they received a FAX from the doctor, but the information was not written in a clinical note And it failed to state that the patient required frequent changes in position. AND.....the doctor didn't sign it. As a final twist, the person who was handling my mother's case at the medical equipment company has quit. The person who is now handling the case will call the doctor's office tomorrow. I'm considering a crowd funding scheme as a publicity stunt.

Meanwhile, the vascular surgeon suggested a new primary care doctor. And one of the office staff at the cardiologist's raised her gorgeously penciled on eyebrows to the moon when I told her about the bed predicament. "Completely unacceptable," she said three times in a row. She told me that hospital beds are usually ordered by the primary care physician, but that I should give the cardiologist's  medical assistant a call.

Time. All of this takes sooo much time and mental energy. This afternoon M and I went to get groceries, and after we'd unloaded the cart, I realized I'd forgotten my wallet. I think my brain might be a tad bit radioactive. I might need a subscription to that Smithsonian Travel Catalogue.

Please Universe, Send Me a Sign

Could be a music festival, I suppose.

At least I had the good sense to call my mom's doctor and the hospital bed place while I walked on the beach this morning.  While there is not yet a bed on the way, my blood pressure is probably just fine. 

Quote from the conversation with the medical equipment place: "You could just pay out-of -pocket to rent a bed from us."

Quote from the doctor's office staff, (delivered in a whine): "They keep asking us for more paperwork. It's not our fault they keep changing what they want."

I'm grateful that my mom has had more good days than bad days in the past week. 

But I have decided that a formal complaint to Medicare is in order. Probably that will involve my computer, and won't be able to be done from my "office" on the sand.

Today's treasures: A shark egg case (also known as a mermaid's purse) and some beach glass.

Hospital Beds and Other Furniture

Let's begin with my desk:

Which is kind of amazing, considering it was barely visible and could not be approached without fear of bodily harm a week ago. My tax prep stuff is not quite yet off to the accountant, but I'm close. Very close. I predict that the file for a certain story I'm revising will be opened this evening.

Things are not going so well with the hospital bed for my mom. Every week for the last month, I've called the company that will be providing the bed after Medicare approves it. Every week, I've also called the doctor's office. The Company assures me that they are trying assiduously to get the paperwork that Medicare requires of the Doctor. The Doctor assures me that they've sent it to the Company. I call the Company back; they say yes, the Doctor has sent This but not That. I call the Doctor; they say, oh, we will send That. I call the Company who says, well, yes, they sent That, but they did it wrong. Repeat. Repeat. And on and on.

On Friday, while the blessed Rosa was with my mom, I drove to the Company. Hi, I said, just thought I'd stop by and see if we could phone the Doctor together, so that I'm not in the middle of this weird ping-pong game, blindfolded. Well, I didn't say that exactly, but something much more prosaic. Sure, the guy said. For fifteen minutes, the Doctor's line was busy. Okay, I said, how about you show me exactly what you need. I will go get it and bring it back to you today.

They actually have a hand-out that explains what Medicare needs. The piece the Doctor failed to provide is explained in the photo above, annotated and highlighted, propped up against my dashboard. I took it to the Doctor. Explained. Wrote my mother's name and birthdate on it. I'll wait for it, I said. Oh dear, that's not how it works, the woman behind the desk said. Oh yes it is, I almost said, mentally unfurling a sleeping bag and pillow while I yawned and stretched and said, I'm waiting for that fucking piece of paper, and I plan on sleeping here. Instead, I said okay. She said, I'm sorry. The doctor will get to it soon. I said, Thank you.

That was Friday. At approximately 11:30. The Woman said they would fax it to the Company. Uh-huh.

And you know what, I don't really blame the Doctor or the Woman at the front desk. Or the Company. I blame Medicare. The pile of paper the Doctor has already sent the Company is enough to paper the wall of a large room. The doctor wrote out a prescription for a hospital bed, just like he writes out a prescription for my mother's 10mg opiate pain killers. I could sell those. I could take those little pills myself and get doped up enough to never give a damn about her hospital bed. No big deal. Here's one little piece of paper. Now sign here. Take it to the pharmacy. Bingo. Opiates. A hospital bed? Nope. Let's not give an old woman who's almost 90 and in constant pain a hospital bed. God knows what might happen.

Monday I will call the Company. Visit the Doctor again, if necessary. When I get that bed, I'm going to work on changing the regulations. Any tips, readers?

Oh, and of course, when we get the bed, I'm gonna have a crazy party. We'll raise our heads, and then our feet, oh my god, we'll put up the sides so we don't fall out and then we'll put the sides back down and take pain pills until we fall on the floor.

Report from Pillville: The hospital bed, the wheel chair, the companion

photo of my mom after her birthday trip to Maryland last September

On my second day of trying, I believe that a hospital bed is working its way through the bureaucracy to my mother. It may or may not be accompanied by a hospital bedside tray table. The transfer (or is is transport or transit?) wheel chair is another story. Medicare does not seem to provide those--or maybe they do, and the agency in my area that "won the bid" is just too dysfunctional to provide one. Anyhow-- I bought the damn chair so I can get my mother to Miracle Ear (oh, if only their hearing aids were actually miraculous) on Wednesday. The trek through Sears to its remotest corner where Miracle Ear is housed is another of the inexplicable inconveniences of old age--and will be impossible if she's having a bad day.

I have a phone call in to an agency that provides a free 1-hour consultation with a lawyer to help me figure out the ins and outs of paying a companion for my mother since the IRS information sheet on paying a domestic employee is devoid of plot and character and poetry, and therefore cannot be read by me. I have an email into the CPA that does my taxes regarding the same issues, and meanwhile I'm concocting a story whereby we just pay this wonderful woman under the table in cash, and I cook the books here in Margaritaville to "prove" that we've been ordering expensive take out every night on my mom's dime. If she has to eventually go into a nursing home,  food would be a permissible spend down of her savings, and making it look like we eat caviar and lobster (so easy to chew!) every night seems preferable to actually figuring out withholding and Social Security and how to file Schedule H with her taxes when her income is so minuscule that she hasn't filed taxes in years.

Oh, and I have to check something about accidents and domestic employees on my homeowner's insurance policy, but it's too late to do this this evening, so I think I'll just get drunk. My sciatica which was kicked up a week or so ago by lifting a regular wheel chair in and out of my hatch 3 times is killing me. So yeah, I'm calling out for some caviar right now. If you want to come over and join us, give a call so I get enough for all of us. Oh and yeah, there'll be martinis, too. We're switching to the expensive gin.

Thursday Morning Beach Report/Report from Pillville

Sanderlings before flight

Sanderlings take flight
white bellies flashing, then swoop
A turn to gray backs.

I learned the ins and outs of medical equipment rental today. Medicare awards contracts through a bidding process to the businesses that provide this stuff. I thought I could swoop into any medical equipment rental place with the prescriptions that the doctor had written and simply make arrangements to have a hospital bed, a bedside tray table, and a wheel chair delivered, and Medcare would cover it. Nope. And it turns out that the place with the Medicare contract in my area has beds, but no wheelchairs. They have the contract for both, but are "out of chairs and won't get any more." I'm still trying to unravel what that means--and will find out--if the place calls me back. They've never heard of anyone getting a bedside table.

The way we handle health care in this country never ceases to puzzle me. How do old people ever figure this stuff out?

Dear Senior Citizens, How do you manage alone?

"I wonder if I'm ever going to get my bill for my health insurance," my mom says to me while I linger in the kitchen avoiding the dastardly coughing woman in my yoga class. Last night the wind rattled my windows, rattled my house, rattled my bones, and my very soul. Without any sleep this could be the morning Coughing Woman breaches my immune system---so I have a second cup of coffee. Oops, too late to go to yoga now.

"What was that you said about a bill, Mom?" My exhausted brain hears the alarm bell, albeit ever so faintly. Out from her bedroom she shuffles with an invoice from December, explaining that the December 1st payment was the last one she'd made. My mother has Medicare, but she also has supplementary insurance through the City of Baltimore where she worked for several years as a janitor in city office buildings. With all of her health issues, she needs that secondary insurance. The upper right hand corner of the last month's invoice carries a terrifying advisory, "If payment is not received by the due date, coverage will be terminated." Last week's trip to the emergency room rose up like an anvil ready to drop. "Uh-oh," I say. My mom went on to explain that the City of Baltimore sends a packet of a year's worth of invoices every January--but they always send them late. The payment is due on the first of the month, but the invoices never arrive in time.

I decide to call the employee benefits phone number listed on the invoice. It's 9:00 a.m. in California. There is no answer in Baltimore. Maybe I mis-dialed. I try again. Lunch? I try an hour later. Still no answer. No outgoing push one for this, two for that message either. Is it a holiday in Baltimore? A week long festival for the inauguration? Martin Luther King Jr. Week? I try the main number for the City of Baltimore. The menu of selections doesn't apply to what I need, but I select for speaking to a real live person and remain on hold for, I dunno, ten minutes? Meanwhile, my mom and I discuss auto-pay options--putting her monthly health insurance premiums on a credit card and enduring the service charge, auto-deducting  the payment from a checking account; why we should do this, i.e. what if you're sick mom, and in the hospital, and I forget to pay it for you? Still, I'm on hold, so I hang up. I grab the iPad and go to the City of Baltimore website expecting to see some banner across it: "City Closed on Mondays," or "Monday is Furlough Day." No. So I scroll through each link to see if we can accomplish setting up the auto-pay online. No. I try the first number again. Ah! "Push one for employee benefits." The person I speak to ensures me that they have the correct address for my mom, that yes, they send out the invoices late every year, that no her coverage isn't lapsed. "I'd like to enroll her in auto-pay," I say. She tells me that the person I need to talk to is on another call. She'll call me back.

It's noon now in California. 3:00 in Baltimore. While waiting, I've checked on my Mom's catastrophic coverage from Care First--which is, essentially, Blue Cross and Blue Sheild, too. My mom thought she'd changed her address with Care First by enclosing notification of her new address with her payment some months before her move here in August. When we finally received the forwarded invoice from them for the next payment, her coverage had lapsed. It took a bit of ranting, but I got it re-instated. It turned out that if you want to change your address with Care First, you need to call them, wait on hold for awhile, and then have them tell you the address of the mail room administrator in Lexington, Kentucky. This address appears nowhere on their invoice. There are no instructions of any kind on the invoice for changing your address. They will, however, drop you like a hot potato if your invoice goes to the wrong address causing you to pay late. But this morning, no worries there. She is paid up currently (after the near disaster of the lapse.) I requested a letter of confirmation. Which I had already requested in writing back in August when I wrote them a letter then after the reinstatement.

I assume that if we had national health insurance in a single-payer model, it would work much like Medicare. Here I am. A person. A citizen. I have this coverage. There would be no dancing around with invoices sent late. No slipping through the cracks. "Ooohhh, this country will never have health care like that!" my mom says.

Oh, dear old people,  especially you who are hard of hearing or with failing eyesight, you who are not computer literate, you whose blood pressure spikes a bit as you struggle to decipher "press 1 for this, 2 for that, etc," how do you manage? From the bottom of my heart, I hope someone is helping you.

Pillvillian I'm Sick Blues

(with apologies to the inestimable Bob Dylan)

Mama’s in her bedroom

Mixin’ up the medicine

I’m on the telephone

Talkin’ ‘bout Primadone

The man in the white coat

Good doc, paid off

Says he’s got a bad cough

Wants to get laid off

Look out, Mom

You’re on Klor-con

God knows how,

But you’re havin’ some fun

You better run to the boat dock

Lookin’ for a new friend

The phlebotomist 

In a cubicle

Wants eleven vials

You only got ten

Fleet foot optometrist

Old Pulmonologist

Hearing heart beats, but

They put you in bed, called

The Cardiologist anyway

Medicare says that many say

They must have hearing aids

Orders from outer space

Look out, Mom

Don’t matter you’re too thin

Walk with a cane

Don’t try your brain

Stay away from assholes

That push Pantoprozole

Keep a clean house

You don’t need a pacemaker

To know which way’s the undertaker

Get old, get bold,

Hang around, get told

If anything’s gone to gold

INR CPR

DNR, no car

Bacteria, Hysteria

Look out, Mom

You’re gonna get hit

Oh, Medtronic

Gin and tonic

Hang around the pill eaters

Man with the oxygen

Wants a new pathogen

Don’t follow leaders

Eat Egg Beaters

Ah get born, keep warm

Nice pants, romance, learn to dance

Potassium, Calcium

Try to be a good mum

Please you, please me, buy gin

Don’t steal, don’t sin

Twenty years of Plavix

And they give you Coumadin

Look out, Mom

They keep it all hid

Better slug down some alcohol

Lower your cholesterol

Don’t wear anger

Try to avoid the cancer

Don’t want a genie

Just a martini

Microwave don’t work

‘Cause the Namenda’s in the blender.

Pillville

I'm imagining a board game. "Pillville" would be its name. The board looks a little like a mononopoly board, but you get a hand of cards, too. The cards you're dealt are your medications and the conditions for which you take them. You roll the dice and move around the board. If you land on a square that pertains to one of the cards you've drawn, something good...or bad will ensue. Maybe there's money, too, that players can use to buy their drugs in Canada. Maybe there are HMO membership cards, Medicare cards, and Medicaid cards, and private insurance cards that you can pick up along the way depending on where the roll of the dice takes you. Which of these you acquire will also effect how you are able to negotiate the twists and turns of fate delvered by the squares you land on. There might be "Junior" and "Senior" versions of the game. Sample squares in "Senior Pillville" might include:(1) After a move across the country, you're now living with an adult child that understands nothing about your medications. Go back 3 squares. (2) If you're taking Warfarin, the levels still are not high enough. You must go to the blood lab for the 3rd time in as many weeks. Go back 5 squares. (3) Your feet are killing you, miss the next turn. (4) Switching from brand names to generics and back again has you horribly confused. Do not pass Go. Do not collect your next insurance reimbursement. (5) Gain 5 pounds. You are approaching a healthier weight. Move ahead 1 square.

By playing the game you will increase your knowledge of dozens of medications, their counterpart generics and competeting brand names, as well as their side effects.The goal of the game is to make it to the finish line with all your faculties intact with your loved ones around you. Of course, you just might end up elsewhere.

A more complex version of the game can be played by adding an expansion deck that adds your financial planning skills into the mix.

What Medicare Doesn't Cover

"No American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies. They should retire with the care and dignity they have earned. Yes, we will reform and strengthen Medicare for the long haul, but we'll do it by reducing the cost of health care – not by asking seniors to pay thousands of dollars more. And we will keep the promise of Social Security by taking the responsible steps to strengthen it – not by turning it over to Wall Street." President Obama

My mom will be 88 soon. Like most Americans her age, she has Medicare. Medicare, however, does not cover eye glasses. She needs both distance and reading correction. 

Medicare does not cover hearing aids. She has two of those, and this past ten days, one has been in the shop. Thankfully, it is still under warranty because the pair cost three grand. I helped her pay for them. Without hearing aids, she would be cut off from the interactions that sustain her.

Medicare does not cover dental. My mom has an upper plate. I have no idea how much that cost. Currently, it doesn't fit quite right. No doubt, an adjustment will be another expense. Interestingly, it slips the most when she is angry. Republican policies usually figure into her anger.

Maybe by the time my generation gets old, we will have already had Lasik, hearing implants, and with the advent of better dental care, we won't need false teeth. But my mother's generation is already paying out of pocket quite a hefty sum for the three things that old people seem to need most. What would they do without Medicare?

Read My Lips

When I am deaf as a post, I will wear a hearing aid.

It started with my uncle Leo, as I recall. He got hearing aids, but didn't like them. After his death, his wife gave them to my Aunt Millie. She didn't like them either. Now when anyone mentions hearing aids to my mother, she says that Leo and Millie hated the ones that they had and if she got some, she probably wouldn't like them either. And they're expensive. And Medicare doesn't cover hearing aids. Which makes me want to cup my ear and shout, "What??!" Insurance for old people doesn't cover one of the things they need most? Turns out it doesn't cover glasses or teeth either. "Whaaaat?"
Whatever.

So I'm going to start saving my money. Now. When I find myself smiling and nodding in a crowded restaurant, or talking in non sequiturs, I'll be ready to shell out a couple thousand bucks so I can rejoin the party.
And that's what I want for my mom.

Rejoin the party, Mom. No.... My joints aren't smarting. They're fine. I don't really have arthritis yet. Tight ass?! Well....that's not what I said, but now that you mention it...Yeah he was, wasn't he?