"...end-of-life becomes a full-time gig as you grow old."
We see it coming, yet that does not make it any easier. Fewer weddings and more funerals and Celebrations of Life (like the one my partner and I will attend this evening for the son of an old friend).
I've had to develop my own approach to death, partially based on material I have read and discussions I recall from my witchy days. Essentially, those who leave us are simply in the next room, seeing us, hearing us, but only able to approach us if we allow it. I have a few friends who dismiss the concept of an existence after Earthly death, citing human hubris as the basis for the notion. My reply has always been to invoke the collective ignorance of humanity as to nature of what transpires after one shuffles off the mortal coil---no one has returned in the flesh to relate the experience in a reliable fashion, therefore any and all claims, religious or otherwise, are quite inaccurate regardless of fervor.
Now, that episode with the surgeon, well, I can only describe Dr. Inappropriate as a 14-karat piece-o-work. I don't know why Nurse Namaste was even there. I don't blame you and Deena at all for not only laughing it up and flying out of there by any means necessary; if Salvador Dali ran a cancer clinic, that would be it. Knitting knockers? Would they be for indoor use only?
The American way of death is indeed a nightmare, for the same reason the American way of Just About Everything is a nightmare: the falsehoods and fallacies of capitalism. The cure is not nearly as profitable as treatment of the symptoms. Just because a healthcare organization is a nonprofit does not mean it is not looking to jack up them there net assets. In the alleged "rational" dissemination of scarce resources that is the bedrock of economics, we live in a society that rewards grown adults with not-so-small fortunes for playing schoolyard games or flashing pretty smiles while, as you rightly observed, medical care and eventual death bankrupts those of us who are not denizens of the rarified worlds. In other words, there's oodles of money out there for quarterbacks and Oscar winners, but not so much for debilitating diseases and palliative care.
That's not "what the market will bear." "The market" does not exist. What price compassion?
"...end-of-life becomes a full-time gig as you grow old."
We see it coming, yet that does not make it any easier. Fewer weddings and more funerals and Celebrations of Life (like the one my partner and I will attend this evening for the son of an old friend).
I've had to develop my own approach to death, partially based on material I have read and discussions I recall from my witchy days. Essentially, those who leave us are simply in the next room, seeing us, hearing us, but only able to approach us if we allow it. I have a few friends who dismiss the concept of an existence after Earthly death, citing human hubris as the basis for the notion. My reply has always been to invoke the collective ignorance of humanity as to nature of what transpires after one shuffles off the mortal coil---no one has returned in the flesh to relate the experience in a reliable fashion, therefore any and all claims, religious or otherwise, are quite inaccurate regardless of fervor.
Now, that episode with the surgeon, well, I can only describe Dr. Inappropriate as a 14-karat piece-o-work. I don't know why Nurse Namaste was even there. I don't blame you and Deena at all for not only laughing it up and flying out of there by any means necessary; if Salvador Dali ran a cancer clinic, that would be it. Knitting knockers? Would they be for indoor use only?
The American way of death is indeed a nightmare, for the same reason the American way of Just About Everything is a nightmare: the falsehoods and fallacies of capitalism. The cure is not nearly as profitable as treatment of the symptoms. Just because a healthcare organization is a nonprofit does not mean it is not looking to jack up them there net assets. In the alleged "rational" dissemination of scarce resources that is the bedrock of economics, we live in a society that rewards grown adults with not-so-small fortunes for playing schoolyard games or flashing pretty smiles while, as you rightly observed, medical care and eventual death bankrupts those of us who are not denizens of the rarified worlds. In other words, there's oodles of money out there for quarterbacks and Oscar winners, but not so much for debilitating diseases and palliative care.
That's not "what the market will bear." "The market" does not exist. What price compassion?
Your writing is a salve on my heart. Thank you.
We should make some salve, speaking of needed medicine! It’s suppose to be easy! (LOL. I love reading about it, anyway).
Let’s make some local potions from where live and then swap . . .