Every Patient's Advocate

The New Healthcare Reform – Is Patient Reform

While Congress continues its monkey shines, American patients are continuing to get substandard, too-expensive healthcare, or no healthcare at all.  We are getting sicker, and dying, because we can’t get decent care.

However, if you think this post is going to be a call to action for Congress – think again.  While I am a firm believer in healthcare reform, and while I firmly believe we Americans deserve universal care – I also know that if you are already sick, or if you get sick today or tomorrow, or even next year, then healthcare reform isn’t going to help you anyway.

The one BIG benefit to all this healthcare legislative brouhaha, no matter what the outcome so far, is that it has forced us patients to realize that Marcus Welby has left the building.  The paternalistic, omnipotent doctor-as-God who actually cared about our medical outcomes has become an endangered species — one most of us will never meet in our lifetimes. Healthcare reform discussions have made this very clear:  American healthcare is not about health or care.  It’s about sickness and money.

So what have we learned?

That in order to get the good, decent care we patients deserve, we’re going to have to take matters into our own hands. Yes — US.  WE PATIENTS are going to have to do it for ourselves. We need to be EMPATIENTS (empowered patients.)  It’s a shift in mindset that those among us who are smarter and more attentive are realizing isn’t a choice.  If we want decent medical care in the United States (or, it seems, in most countries of the world) — we must make this shift in our thinking.

I hear people poo-pooing the use of the term “empowered.”  They don’t like it because to them, it suggests that someone must GIVE us power.

I don’t see it that way.  I see “empowered” as something we take on ourselves.  We take command of our care.  We take responsibility for acquiring the information we need, then making decisions for ourselves. We do that with a variety of resources, including physicians, other patients, and media information sources like the Internet, libaries and others.

If you think about it — that’s an entirely different way of accessing healthcare than most of us are used to.  It says that, in effect, we will no longer allow healthcare to be done TO us or FOR us.  Instead we will demand it be done WITH us.

That means it’s a whole new type of healthcare reform.
In fact, it’s PATIENT REFORM.

Are you ready to take up that cause for yourself and your loved ones?  There’s no argument over money here… it’s simply a recognition that if we are going to get the health and medical care we want and deserve, we are going to have to make it happen ourselves. It’s an approach to getting the right diagnosis, the right treatment, staying safe, and making sure you don’t lose your health because you can’t afford to access care.  It’s collaborative, research based, and helps us advocate for ourselves.

Here are some places to begin:

•  What’s an Empowered Patient? (or anything at the About.com Patient Empowerment site.)

•  You Bet Your Life! The 10 Mistakes Every Patient Makes (How to Fix Them to Get the Health Care You Deserve)

•  E-Patients.net (e-patients and emPatients describe the same thing – e-patients does not mean you need to understand electronic media.)

•  The Society for Participatory Medicine

These resources link to the dozens of other resources you’ll need, too.

Yes — this is it.  The beginnings of PATIENT REFORM.  Let those in Congress, the ones who have cadillac healthcare plans and don’t really understand what the rest of us deal with continue their bickering and corporate *ss-covering.  Let them continue to kow-tow to special interests who are more about making sure they keep their corners of the healthcare money pie, with little or no regard for patient outcomes.

I declare 2010 to be the Year of the EmPatient! Empowered, participatory — finding far better outcomes than we ever could by depending on Congress or someone else to — maybe — help us out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

DISCUSS | TIPS | NEWSLETTER | FACEBOOK | TWITTER

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Conspiracy Theorists and Flu Vaccines – Pick Another Battle Please

A couple of weeks ago I posted a flu vaccine commentary and poll after listening to Dr. Dean Edell on the radio. He was talking about people who refuse to get vaccinated. He made the comment that vaccines have been proven effective for decades, and he’s tired of trying to defend them. That if people refuse to get vaccinated, and die — well — that’s just a way to clean out the gene pool.

Readers of the post took offense, calling me arrogant and ignorant. Among them are people who are truly afraid, people who are allergic, people who feel as if they have done their due diligence and have dismissed vaccines (empowered patients!) — and conspiracy theorists.

I wrote a follow up post, citing highly credible sources for all to see, showing why I believe flu vaccines are so important. The bottom line is that the flu is dangerous — both the H1N1 swine flu and the seasonal flu are killers. Vaccines are the only defense we have today (who knows – maybe we’ll have something better in the future?) And the statistics tell us that we have a 591% better chance of dying from the flu than we do dying from the flu vaccine. You don’t have to be a Las Vegas gambler to understand those odds.

I am actually VERY pleased that so many people have given researched thought and consideration to the question – even the ones who disagree with me.  However — I must say — I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with the flu vaccine conspiracy theorists…. seriously. And if you are one, I say to you — get a life!

Here are the conspiracy theorists’ arguments. They remind me of a saying I heard many years ago — “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me.”  Further – they have violated the first rule of questionable healthcare practices, and that is – Follow the Money.

Here are some of their lines of reasoning, and my comments:

1. Flu vaccine is only produced to make pharmaceutical companies richer. To that I say — don’t be silly. For the cost, personnel and too tiny profits to be made by producing vaccine, pharmaceutical manufacturers would much prefer to put their efforts into producing something that actually makes a worthwhile profit for them.  Included is the manufacturing are symptoms relievers — far FAR more profitable in the long run.  Why would they want to prevent an illness at very little profit at the expense of bigger profits from medicine that could relieve or fix us?

2.  Flu vaccines were developed from African Green Monkeys - and the real intent is to eradicate the population of the earth! This one gets the “give me a break” award on so many counts… First…  if the government wanted to eradicate the entire population of the earth, they could do it FAR more efficiently by using, oh, say  anthrax or dengue fever – or some other killer.  Why would they go to all the trouble to develop something that actually took science?  Why not a shortcut, and something cheap to do it?

3.  And then I have to ask – why would the government (which government anyway?) want to eradicate the world’s population? If the government eradicated the world’s population, then who would be left to govern?  and who would be left to pay taxes to that government?  and who would be in charge anyway?  (because the government is comprised of people who would get sick, too)…. etc etc….

Sorry — but these theories are just plain laughable.  You want a conspiracy?  I think there’s a conspiracy to make me waste my time looking these things up — because I do my due diligence, unlike some of my readers.

Here’s the deal — I understand that not everyone wants to be injected with flu vaccines, and even that some must avoid vaccines because their bodies cannot tolerate them.  However — for the great majority of us (GREAT majority) — flu shots will keep us healthier — and will keep our loved ones and those around us healthier — than not getting flu shots will.

Further — as reasonable people, we need to understand that unless we have a real concern about negative effects of vaccines, we must accept responsibility for passing possibly deadly flu on to others when we don’t get the flu vaccine.  H1N1 or seasonal — they are both killers.  I’m not willing to be responsible for making someone else sick, nor chancing that they could die.  I would not be able to sleep at night.

Do you?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

DISCUSS | TIPS | NEWSLETTER | FACEBOOK | TWITTER

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You Bet Your Life! Published, Early and Available

In my life, I’ve given birth three times — to Becca, my older daughter, Ashley, my younger daughter — and now to my first book.

Labor!  ay!  Let me tell you about my labor!  The gestation period has taken years (please, no elephant jokes!) — but the baby was worth waiting for.

You Bet Your Life!
The 10 Mistakes Every Patient Makes
(How to Fix Them to Get the Health Care You Deserve)

I’m quite proud of it, really.  And I’d love to know what you think of it, too.

Even after all that time, it was a bit premature — meaning — it won’t be available in bookstores for another several weeks — the actual publication date isn’t until February 1, 2010.

But!

It IS available for sale at the book’s website — and between now and December 31, 2009, at special pricing.  Not only is the book price reduced (only $12.95 — retail cost is $16.95) — but shipping is only $1 per book in the US. (A bit higher outside the US.)

I’ve been asked if it contains the same information you find on my other websites and the answer is yes and no.  In fact, some of the basic information is the same — yes — but I’m told by those who have already read it that it’s far more comprehensive, and that since it is found in a chronology of ideas, it’s far more useful.

Please take my baby home!  Then let me know what you think.  And thanks to the many people who have already supplied good words….  It’s time for YOU to take control of your health care now, too!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

DISCUSS | EMPOWERMENT TIPS | NEWSLETTER | TWITTER

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mom – Free of Her Alzheimer’s Prison

My mother, Betty Louise (Stetson) Torrey, died this week.  I’m sad, mourning our loss, and grieving, of course.

But I also rejoice!  Because more than a decade of Alzheimer’s disease had ravaged her brain, and her body, and she was not Mom for many, too many years.  She is now free of that prison.

I wish you could have known my mother.  Intelligent and funny, caring, talented and clever, she brightened a room when she walked through its door.  She had a beautiful singing voice which graced school auditoriums and church sanctuaries, and a mean golf swing which found its way through more than two dozen countries across the globe, and resulted in three holes-in-one!  She loved the Buffalo Bills, the Buffalo Sabres, and Syracuse University sports.  She was a master calligrapher and could cross-stitch her way to the moon and back.

All that and more.

The “more” came in the form of being a loving and supportive partner to my dad and, from my own perspective, a great mom and grandmother, too.  The life lessons she shared were the basics — cooking, cleaning, etc.  But more than that, my sisters and I learned concepts that have stood the test of time and have made us better people.

So my tribute — this post — will be about sharing two of those life lessons with you, so you can understand better what I mean.

Mom was a fantastic and creative seamstress.  Each Halloween she would put together the most glorious costumes for my sisters and me — and sometimes for herself and Dad, too.  When Mom was pregnant, she made herself a kangaroo costume. In second grade, I was a Christmas tree.  A couple years later, I was the organ grinder and my younger sister, Barb, was the monkey.  Seriously.

Fast forward 25 years, I would do my best to sew fabulous costumes for my daughter, Becca, too, beginning when she was only a year old.  But when Becca was in second grade, all she wanted was a $5 costume from Kmart!  All I could think was, what kind of a lousy mother would just spring the $5 for a cookie cutter costume from Kmart?  It was a conundrum, for sure.

So I shared that conundrum with Mom, in hopes she would understand the dilemma.  But she didn’t understand it at all — because to her way of thinking, the point was to make Becca happy.  And if Becca was happy with a Kmart costume, then so be it.

In other words — the outcome was far more important than the process.  A good lesson.

Many years later, and up until about 2001, Mom and I played golf in the mother-daughter golf tournament each summer. This particular golf tournament was an annual event which was won by the same 2-3 mother daughter pairs each year — because they were all good, competitive golfers.

I’m not that golfer.  I play against my own previous scores, but don’t really care about beating someone else.  I’m more about the fun, the fellowship, and enjoying a beautiful day.

However, undaunted, Mom and I would play our best.  If you won the tournament, there were some very nice prizes to be had.  And, if you won the tournament, you were put in charge of the tournament the following year.

So each year, before we teed off on the first hole, Mom would remind me that our goal was to come in… second.

The lesson?  That sometimes you win bigger by not being first.

It’s not easy losing a parent.  I’ve been learning that for many years through the fog of Alzheimer’s, and I’m learning even more about it now.  We’re fortunate that Dad is still with us – as sharp and vital as ever.

We’re at peace with losing Mom, even through our mourning.  Over time, I’m sure that the sadness and frustrations wreaked by Alzheimer’s will be fully replaced and obscured by the happier memories of her first 75 years.

I hope you and those you love will never have to suffer “the long good-bye” of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Rest in peace Mom.  I will always love you.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

DISCUSS | EMPOWERMENT TIPS | NEWSLETTER | TWITTER

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .