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Well, this last few months have been an adventure.

Mrs Lars finally had her long time heart issues catch up with her back in March.

We ended up dealing with a severe Staph infection that caused her to need open-heart surgery, and eventually a pacemaker installed.

Fortunately, I had excellent health insurance through my work. Our out of pocket for the whole thing was a mere fraction of the whole bill (Which we are still working on totaling up.) Suffice to say that, without insurance, I would be so overwhelmed by the costs, I cannot even imagine what I would be doing, now.

There were other people in the hospital who obviously lacked adequate insurance for the tasks. I watched one family try to absorb what was happening to them. It was heartbreaking.

The other issue that I found disturbing was that patients who had no family member immediately available could easily fall into serious problems with receiving the attention they need to receive the proper medical care.

I had called the EMTs because mrs L was in a state of delirium from what proved to be sepsis, along with very low Sodium and Magnesium, and had no idea what was happening.

We returned to the hospital, and she spent the night under observation. The next morning I had stepped out of the room to get some coffee. When I returned, a doctor was in the room and they had been having a conversation. Mrs L was not really following the Doctor, but se was being courteous and trying to be agreeable. As I entered the room the doc was saying, "OK, we will see about getting you ready for discharge."

WTF!?!?!?

It was all I could do to maintain composure. I managed to explain to the doc that the person she was conversing with was barely cognizant of her surroundings and had no idea what had happened to her in the last 24 hours, and this person WAS NOT my wife, but a mere shell of who my wife was.

She began to take another look, and ordered some more labs. Shortly after that mrs L lost consciousness completely, and her vitals started dropping. They moved her to ICU, and began attaching air hoses and more IVs. Started some antibiotics, and some mineral drips.

They then identified the bug that was in her blood, and started treating the infection.

Had I not been there, they very well might have shipped her home to let her die.

I can't help but wonder how many people may get discarded, simply because they have no immediate family near by to see that the proper attention is paid, and proper care administered.

Alarming that the doctor assumed she knew the person she was talking to was OK enough to understand when she obviously wasn't, and that she was happy to discharge on the basis of a pleasant conversation.

Fortunate you were there, and could fight her corner.

Hope she is well on the way to better health.

Wishing her a swift recovery.

I'm glad that you were there and got back in time to intervene.

I agree that there are some serious flaws in our system and that a lot of people don't get the care that they need.

I hope your wife recovers quickly.

Crikey. Some very worrying bits there. Best wishes to both of you. At least modern medicine can achieve amazing things nowadays - pacemakers, open heart surgery, I can remember a time before these things, certainly before they were almost routine! Still scary as heck, though.

Lars, how awful that your wife has suffered so! Best hopes & wishes for the both of you. May she recover soon.

Healthcare in the US is all about profits and Wall Street. A persons health care should not be decided by the amount of money or the type of insurance one has. Until we get our health care system to care more about our health than money it will never get better.

As a normally right leaner I am definitely a left leaner when it comes to health care. We need a national health care system and we need it now. Of all the things we as Americans protest I cant believe no one take up this cause with more importance.

Oh sorry Lars. I hope you and your wife a better next few months. Take care of her because we men know that our women always take care of us..

Clodhopper;1520103 wrote: Crikey. Some very worrying bits there. Best wishes to both of you. At least modern medicine can achieve amazing things nowadays - pacemakers, open heart surgery, I can remember a time before these things, certainly before they were almost routine! Still scary as heck, though.


So things have settled down, and in a few days she will be coming home from Rehab. All is well on that front. finally.

I remember when Pacemakers were the size of a soda cracker, and were sensitive to microwaves and magnetic fields. This one is about size of a vitamin pill, and sits in the heart chamber.

Micra - Small Leadless Pacemaker | Medtronic

Sad to hear about all this. Best to you and wife.

LarsMac;1520119 wrote: So things have settled down, and in a few days she will be coming home from Rehab. All is well on that front. finally.

I remember when Pacemakers were the size of a soda cracker, and were sensitive to microwaves and magnetic fields. This one is about size of a vitamin pill, and sits in the heart chamber.

Micra - Small Leadless Pacemaker | Medtronic


Leadless is good, in addition to the size. The info on the device is awesome. We've come a long way with med devices.

I'm sure that you will be very happy to have her home again, when she is ready.

Hope all turns out well. It must be terrifying being ill in America something like that is bad enough without having to worry about medical costs as well.

Thanks for all the good wishes.

We got home this morning. After release, we decided to go have breakfast at one of our favorite cafe' spots. The sun was shining, and a nice breeze, we found a table on the patio, and soaked in the morning.

It has been four months since our last breakfast together in such a place.

It was almost like getting out of jail.

We learned a lot in these months.

You - the patient - MUST take responsibility for your well-being. You need to realize that these people really don't know you, and they have a whole lot of other people they are working to care for, and they will forget you, the moment they walk into the next room to see the next patient. Anything you don't have in writing did not happen, and likely will not be remembered.

If something is written down in your record, it is fact. If it is wrong, it is still fact until you make them remove it from the record. Even if they remove it, it may still be fact, until all parties have seen that it is no longer part of your record. Remember that part about them forgetting you? well, not if it is wrong. You'd be amazed how long an incorrect item can remain in their consciousness.

Medicine is more of an Esoteric Art than a Science. Trust me on that.

Sounds like a great breakfast and a nice way to start the next phase.

I agree that the patient must be assertive enough to push the doctors to run the tests and come to the right diagnosis. I also agree about the medical records becoming the bible for future medical decisions. I know that it isn't easy to change incorrect information in one's medical records, from my own experience.

I'm happy your partner is better, LM.

Healthcare looks to me to be the latest financial bubble. Pharmacies are popping up everywhere and hospitals are merging. The question is whether or not it's sustainable. I don't see how it can be. Insurance is a middle player in the industry that just shouldn't be there, and it's justified by the enormous costs associated with anything medical. Costs are inflated in order to justify the insurance because of the medical industry having an investment portfolio heavily invested in insurance and insurance being heavily invested in medical. It's a scam.

There are so many sundry issues associated with all this too.

Ahso!;1520202 wrote: I'm happy your partner is better, LM.

Healthcare looks to me to be the latest financial bubble. Pharmacies are popping up everywhere and hospitals are merging. The question is whether or not it's sustainable. I don't see how it can be. Insurance is a middle player in the industry that just shouldn't be there, and it's justified by the enormous costs associated with anything medical. Costs are inflated in order to justify the insurance because of the medical industry having an investment portfolio heavily invested in insurance and insurance being heavily invested in medical. It's a scam.

There are so many sundry issues associated with all this too.


American healthcare, I heard is the best in the world........if you have enough money you can be kept alive forever. (Slight pun there)

If you haven't got much cash, get to the back of the queue.

It happens to be the most expensive in the world.

British Healthcare is very cost affective, amongst the best value in the world, not THE best healthcare these days however, mainly due to political ideology.

There is lots of money in healthcare, if it's done for profit, and that's why the NHS is ever so slowly being privatised............frighteningly.

Ahso!;1520202 wrote: I'm happy your partner is better, LM.

Healthcare looks to me to be the latest financial bubble. Pharmacies are popping up everywhere and hospitals are merging. The question is whether or not it's sustainable. I don't see how it can be. Insurance is a middle player in the industry that just shouldn't be there, and it's justified by the enormous costs associated with anything medical. Costs are inflated in order to justify the insurance because of the medical industry having an investment portfolio heavily invested in insurance and insurance being heavily invested in medical. It's a scam.

There are so many sundry issues associated with all this too.


Wish I could argue with that, but you are spot on.

I haven't totaled up the whole thing, yet, but I am pretty sure this whole adventure has hit a million bucks, on paper. Fortunately, my insurance has covered a great deal of it. It seems that insurance is paying something like 30 cents on the dollar.

Without insurance We would be in debt for the rest of our lives, and forced to eventually file bankruptcy and die penniless, leaving the providers holding the bag.

LarsMac;1520204 wrote: Wish I could argue with that, but you are spot on.

I haven't totaled up the whole thing, yet, but I am pretty sure this whole adventure has hit a million bucks, on paper. Fortunately, my insurance has covered a great deal of it. It seems that insurance is paying something like 30 cents on the dollar.

Without insurance We would be in debt for the rest of our lives, and forced to eventually file bankruptcy and die penniless, leaving the providers holding the bag.


Well, if .30 on the dollar is what they are willing to accept, why not accept that from the patient? But no, what you have to do is pay hundreds of dollars per month in the form of insurance payments to belong to the .30 on the dollar club. But it gets even worse because then most people have to pay deductibles and co-pays on top of the insurance premiums. It is a total scam, and Obama played it too, even to the point of making it mandatory. Insurance needs to be taken out of the equation to make the system fair and sustainable and people involved in the healthcare industry need to admit that they don't need to make ridiculous amounts of money for what they do. What really aggravates me is that my tax money went to the education of all these people. For what? To rip me and my loved ones off? To put us all in a perpetual cycle of debt? And then we're lectured about saving. Insane.

YZGI;1520117 wrote: Healthcare in the US is all about profits and Wall Street. A persons health care should not be decided by the amount of money or the type of insurance one has. Until we get our health care system to care more about our health than money it will never get better.

As a normally right leaner I am definitely a left leaner when it comes to health care. We need a national health care system and we need it now. Of all the things we as Americans protest I cant believe no one take up this cause with more importance.


I agree but I don't see it happening. With the way the private industry it putting CVS pharmacies on almost every corner, they believe the trend is consumer base and for-profit. All this talk of Medicare for all is just rhetoric for votes. This condition didn't appear overnight and the time to fight for public healthcare was years ago, and none of them did to any real degree. Neoliberal policies beginning with the Reagan administration and accelerated mainly during the Clinton administration screwed us all. In more ways than one too.

Hang On

Isn't the thread title an Oxymoron .

I have heard that if all American people fell to the same side at the same time , the

planet would move off axis , poles would reverse and we would all perish .