The Golden Years. I don't think so. (cancer, mom, parent)
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I'm fully retired and enjoying my golden years, I have earned them!!!
I have some medical problems that I didn't have a few years ago, but I still would not want to go back to those working years. Yes, life is a little more difficult now because of medical problems then a few years ago.
The good news, I have had almost every medical test I can have and I know what I have and what I don't have. Other then some kidney issues I'm fairly healthy, no heart problems, no cancer all my other organs are working fine.
My days are always full of things to do, some days I decide what I will do when I wake up that morning. I have not heard an alarm go off for a decade now. I just wake up when I wake up. I would not change a thing.
Those people who say "Geography doesn't bring happiness," really don't get it. I'm an architectural historian, and I can tell you, some of us are intimately tied to "a sense of place," and it can make the difference between feeling old and tired and worn out, and feeling refreshed and young.
I loved your post. Just loved it. Hubby and I are considering an "55+ Community" (age restricted) and your post was very inspiring and helpful.
Looking back, this summer people / winter people description goes back I am sure 2,000 years. The area in time most identify today has been the last 120 years . There were two kinds of people , ", summer people" were / and are mostly those looking for somewhere cool, to get away from the heat and humidity that plagues most of North America. It may have been by some standards only the rich could every summer head far north, open the cabana and stay until Labor Day when the kids have to go back to school, but that is not entirely true when you look at the numbers. "Winter people" come in two kinds, those who actually migrate with the seasons and bring their family with as well as their jobs.The other kind are truly what we are talking about here, those aging fools who venture south, ether for the season or for the long or short run, which ever comes first. Yes , it's all geographical and you are quite correct, the weather DOS bring happiness , something we deal with every day, all our lives. The fools are those who think the world revolves around them, their lifestyle , their ability to adapt to the elements, somewhat like the pioneers who crossed the Great Divide and found not so much what they wanted, but found their "place" to turn the prairie grass for the first time and start a new life living in a sod shanty, razing 10 children all the while battering the elements, everything nature could throw at them, but , they dug in , they stayed , they became people who's world was very narrow and restricted. Geography was a foul word, an unnecessary subject, that even today is absent in schools everywhere .
making a killing...yes they are, the first Dr charged $328 called it a routine preventive visit (it was not) medicare did not cover it, asked to re-submit, they upped the charges to $400, now the bill for US to pay is $728 for a 5 min visit that was supposed to be a physical and get medication for high blood pressure, he says you must come back next week for that ache in your back, went back, he got another $328, 5 min visit, and then a followup visit for another $328, then schedule a colonoscopy for husband and wife, the neighbors said they were being given one of those every couple years, the whole town is getting a colonoscopy, then they sent the wife to get a bone density scan, said she needed it (age 57), then insurance said 3 months later they won't cover that, so another $500 for that, nobody is sick, and they have made a killing off us. There are more needless visits and prescriptions that are prescribed for no reason. You go to the pharmacy and it is loaded with people getting their medication. Also, during all these visits, not once was any type of actual "exam" given, no looking in ear, throat, tapping on chest, knee, looking in eyes, nose, no stethoscope, just a lot of computer tapping and distracted questions, Dr looking off into space and not really seeming to focus in on the patient, very fast visits.
The older I get the more I hear the stories about people I know who never go to doctor. That just shrugged off indications and never had any testing or regular physicals until they had a major problem. Normally its at funeral or hospital talking to their spouse. Others I know need knee replacements and its not insurance or money; they just wouldn't. Then I have a friend who had both shoulders replaced and one knee and plays golf three times a week. Others gripe about even going for a regular office visit so they can get new prescriptions and admit to not telling the doctor on complainant they made to be not long before.I just do not understand with so many things preventable or fixable; why people do not take advantage of modern medicine that can.
It's one thing to not go to the doctor if you're healthy....and perhaps I can see not running to the doc every time a little thing pops up. Waiting to see if a bother goes away -- a slight headache or stubbed toe -- is fine and reasonable. But it's quite another to not go to the doctor when you know you DO have something wrong, that has NOT gone away AND is getting worse. And of course even some slight symptoms need immediate attention -- blurred vision for example.
BUT I'm not sure, older people are any more prone to not going to a doc, than younger ones. I never have been a go to the doctor type. But I think people don't go for different reasons...sometimes they don't even have a reason for not going (or can't articulate it)...they say "oh, I'm just not the doctor type"....well that's one thing when all is well....and quite another if your foot or finger is turning black, or your head feels like it's on fire, or you've had stomach pain that's been getting worse for weeks.....
The pharmacy here will at any given time have about 20 people standing in line to pick up meds. PS I took care of an elderly lady last year, I felt so bad for her because her doctors had her on a pile of medications, she had copd, but some medications for this that and the other thing having to do with side effects of the other medications and depression which was caused by the Lyrica, the ritalin to revive her from the depressive other medication, it went on and on and on and every time I drove her to a Dr they would order all sorts of tests and give her more pills. She was barely able to walk or breathe and they even gave her a mammogram at age of 93, she shouted in the Mammogram clinic. "Hey! If they find breast cancer I AM NOT going to let them do surgery so WHY AM I HERE?" it was crazy. Her daughter told me just keep taking her to all these appointments but test after test and really she was told she could not endure any surgery but they did knee xrays, colonoscopies, on and on.
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