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A week and a half ago I got a call from my brother that I was needed in San Diego so I hopped in Fern, my faithful steed, and hit the road. I love this van! When I first saw Fern at the Salvation Army Car Lot, she was a mess. The interior and exterior were trashed. The rear seats, carpets and headliners were gone, the front seats worn and ripped. The exterior was similar. The entire roof was a mass of rust, the sides dented, the bumper and mirrors broken and hanging dismally.
But I saw potential there. She had good tires, a sweet sounding little 4 banger that had been replaced, and a five speed transmission. I offered them $400 for the van but they said the wrecking yard would give them $450, so that’s what I got her for.
I went to the wrecking yard and picked up mirrors, a top rack, a trailer hitch, headlight lens, bumper parts, and a nice bench seat from a camper that folded out to a double bed. Total cost $200. I already had a couple of front seats from another car that I modified to fit the van’s sliders. I got a bunch of rattle cans of auto touch up paint for a buck a can at the Buy More store. A weeks hard work and I had a nice camping van that didn’t burn any oil and got 30 mpg on the road.
My brother said that mom was in the hospital again. She had been taking care of my dad for the past twelve years through his stroke, the prostate cancer, and the Alzheimer’s. The strain had given her congestive heart failure, and diabetes, and now she was also getting dementia. She had forgotten both her and dad’s medications for the past two weeks and the bills had gone unpaid. I was fortunate enough to have three brothers in San Diego that had been taking turns helping, but one had a heart attack and the other two had the flue. Things were a mess, but I thought I could do something.
During this the season of Thanksgiving, I am very grateful that my folks are still with us. I am extremely grateful for the nurse, and the occupational and physical therapists, that the hospital sent out courtesy of Medicare, but I was extremely shocked to find out that 90 days of diabetes supplies cost over $500, even with the Blue Cross Blue Shield supplemental insurance that cost $400 a month. Just one drug cost us $150 and would have been $700 if they didn’t have the insurance! What would happen if they had no insurance at all?
I am thankful that my folks were able to do a good job raising four boys on a very limited budget. At that time changing diapers was a pain. The diapers I change now are technical marvels. They sacrificed a lot to care for us and now it is my turn. The Wheel of Life turns.
As I set about trying to improve diet, manage meds, and learn how to give shots, I am grateful that our nation was willing to invest in a government run Medicare system, because none of us could afford these costs. I am grateful that we as a nation did not decide to just throw the old folks away. I think the folks have a few more miles in them, and I hope to make life worth living for them.
Will we continue to just throw away the 45,000 people who die each year because they can’t afford health care, or the insane price of medicine? Should we send them to the great wrecking yard in the sky, or invest in some TLC to make them productive members of society again?