Friends, non-Friends, Enemies, Accidential Enemies

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 therapies.  And that's just the "care" side of the equation.  The billing process, or lack of it, is Nightmare Fuel (and Nightmares are often not covered by your insurance).  

You don't have to have anything exotic.  But once you enter the system, abandon all hope.  The two heads will begin to interject themselves pretty much right from the get-go.  You ask your doctor "So, what's causing this energy drain?  Why am I tired all the time?"  With a learned tone and a caring visage he/she says "It depends.  Better run some tests."  

So, you go for tests.  Sometimes it's blood.  Sometimes it''s urine.  Sometimes it's both.  And imaging--gotta have that.  After all that the doctor looks at the data and says "It's nothing definitive.  Have you ever had a Roto-Rooter of your arteries?"  And off you go, again.  

In the 21st Century, you find out what you've got by first finding out what you DON'T got.  Doctors eliminate the most likely suspects (Cancer, Heart Disease, Creeping Crud) and then move to the more exotic.  And "exotic" directly translates into "expensive".  The less you've heard about Test A or Therapy X, the more expensive it is.  

And doctors play to your pride.  Nobody wants to have something simple--that won't do.  You want to hear that you have a severe case of Hungarian Capillary Syndrome.  Your doctor says he/she hasn't seen one of those in a LONG time.  Now you feel "special".  You graduate from the herd of Horses to the small group of Zebras.  And THAT means a trip to another hospital, to see more doctors who are experts in Hungarian Capillary Syndrome and their first move is what?  MORE TESTS, of course.  All the time the meter is running like the National Debt Clock, but that comes later.

Whew.  I'm exhausted.  Better go see my fatigue specialist and let her know that my Endocrinologist wants a Triple Filtered Blood Test that can only be administrated in Tibet.  Woo Hoo!