Dispatches from the Disabled List

The Medical Profession goes by a neat slogan:  "First, do no harm".  It encapsulates a way of doing business that helps put the patient at ease.  "At least they won't do more harm than good".  I'm reminded of the Calvin & Hobbes strip where Calvin is at the doctor's office.  The doctor says "This won't hurt a bit" while brandishing a hypodermic needle.  Calvin, ever the rake, answered "Well, let me jab that thing in YOUR butt, and we'll see".   Doing no harm doesn't mean handing out zero pain, or discomfort, or having the Cure be worse than the Disease.  They've come up with a new word--"pressure"--to describe pain.  "You'll feel some pressure", when translated from the original deSade means "this is gonna hurt but we'll minimize it by calling it something much more innocuous." As we learn what we don't got in pursuit of what we do got, we are often subjected to "press...

Now that we've established your age ("old"), we now move to the most important and adventure-filled fight of your life.  NO, not issues of your impending retirement (and the neurosis surrounding your finances), NO, not challenges within your family unit (yours, your spouse's, any other groups)--NO, not even the uncertainty about what you might do with all that time you used to spend commuting/working/worrying.   Nope.   Your most important challenge is navigating the American Health Care System and its component parts.  Our politicians like to boast that we have "the best healthcare in the world".  Perhaps--if you can afford it, and if you can slay the two-headed monster of Defensive Medicine and Doctor Speaks But Lawyer's Words Come Out. Both heads are potentially fatal.   Either can make a good situation bad, and a bad situation worse.  Or, worst of all, it may slow the healing process to a slog through tests, medications, and therapie...