Two weeks ago, in the space of 16 hours, I lost my dad and my dog. Denial finally slipped away, and I spent a lot of hours sobbing my eyes out. I'm not sobbing now. After watching the Health Care Summit Thursday, I'm feeling something else altogether.
You see, my dad was eased out of life by hospice. My dog was eased out of life by our vet. Two weeks ago, I participated in two "death panels."
And I'm not sorry at all.
My dad was 84. He'd been in ill-health for some years: diabetes, dialysis, several heart attacks. He was doing pretty good considering.
And it wasn't even his illnesses that ended his life; it was a fall. A very bad fall, one that could happen to anyone. A fall bad enough that even a young, healthy person would have only a 60% chance of surviving.
But he was one of those people the Republicans on Thursday referred to as the 5% who use 50% of the medical services in this country.
You know what? I'm not sorry. I got twenty extra years with my Dad, most especially the last two, because of Medicare. I had him to talk to, hug, and love. But I think the Republicans would have been quite happy to pull the plug on him long ago. I wasn't, even when I had to do it.
My dog, by contrast, had been in great health all his life. Ten years of picture-perfect health. And then, in the space of 4 hours, we lost him because he had developed spleen cancer, a terribly aggressive form of cancer in dogs, and his spleen had ruptured. Without warning. Without much time.
(And aside here, but much to the point: neither my dad nor my dog died from long term illness. Both died from sudden, unexpected problems, the kind of thing that could happen to any of us in an instant. The Republicans seem to think, from what they said, that we can all somehow plan for these unforeseeable events.)
So in the space of one day, I participated in two death panels. The first was for my dad. He'd taken a serious fall, broken five ribs and two vertebrae, and lay in ICU. They couldn't give him enough morphine for the pain because it depresses breathing, and despite their caution he developed pneumonia. Every breath, every movement was sheer agony. The family decided to call hospice. He agreed. And my dad slipped peacefully away, surrounded by family, out of pain at last.
The second panel, less than 16 hours after my dad's death, involved deciding whether to put the dog through surgery. There was a remote chance that the tumor might be benign. Maybe. Something like a 30% chance. But I looked at that dog and knew that as much as I loved him the right thing was not to put him through surgery and the post-op pain when there was a better than 2/3 chance he had an aggressive cancer and would be in exactly the same place in a month or two. Especially since blood loss was already putting him into organ failure. He had no distal pulse, his gums were white... He was bleeding out. The vet couldn't even guarantee he'd survive the surgery at that point.
So twice in the space of one day I made the agonizing decisions to let go of a loved one. These are not "death panels." These are horrific decisions no family wants to make. Ever.
Yet I got to say goodbye, which is more than many people get. And when I'm ready to go, I hope I get that option.
But I won't if the Republicans have their way. They want me not to have insurance. They think that somehow I should just never get sick. Sorry, I'm already sick, which is the primary reason I can't get insurance...even if I could afford it.
So as I watched the summit yesterday, I listened to these guys talk about how Americans should be responsible for their illnesses, and too damn bad if you don't have insurance, because that's your problem, not anybody else's, and I knew that if they had their way, I'd never get my own death panel.
No. I held up a bottle of my meds to my partner and said, "Here's my healthcare plan: an overdose." Because without health care reform, I'll have no other choice. I won't have family gathered around in ICU, or anywhere else. When the pain becomes too much (unless I have the good fortune to drop dead from sudden cardiac arrest) I'll have to take myself out.
I won't get the mercy my dad got, or that I was able to give my dog. I'll have to creep away to some place where no one can find me and hope I take the right number of pills.
And because of the health care situation in this country, it's far more likely that I'll have to be my own death panel, because God knows I won't be able to have any other kind, and God knows that likelihood grows every day as I can't take care of the health I do have because I can't afford doctors, and routine tests, and the kind of medical oversight I should have.
On the other hand, maybe I'll make it to 65. And then, because I couldn't afford the routine care my illness requires, I'll be one of the 5% sucking up the 50% of care, all because I can't take proper care of myself now.
Now doesn't that just make wonderful sense?
Edit: I'd like to add a link to another diary here that shows the incredible relationship between the conservative position that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few and our growing social ills: Today's Morning Feature