Health Care

I’m a diabetic. Now hold on, don’t go all mushy with sympathy for my degeneratively diseased old self. You can direct that towards the celebrities in those medicine advertisements. No, I’m a type 2 case who fortunately doesn’t need to stab my body with insulin filled needles throughout the day. My treatment consists of frequent visits to the doctor’s office for lectures about weight loss and healthy living, watching my waistline (it seems to be easier to see all the time), walking two or three miles a day and taking a nice white pill with breakfast. Since I was already taking a couple pills for my hypertension (high blood pressure for you medically un-educated folks) one more tablet didn’t seem like a bad idea. Of course about a year ago the doctor told me some of my medicines were lowering my potassium level so he prescribed a couple of chunky pieces of that mineral to add to the pill pile. But all in all, I’m in okay shape and certainly hoping that I won’t be a burden to you all when I go on Medicare in a couple weeks.

Of course my medical insurance will still be supplied by my dear wife as she continues on her quest for more money and benefits in the world of employment. Some day we’ll be looking at those Plan B, D and other alphabetical supplements that are designed to bankrupt old people on fixed incomes. But for now we’re doing okay. In fact (And here’s what I really wanted to talk about instead of Mr. Obama’s health care utopia) I even have a service where a registered nurse calls me on the phone every six weeks or so to check on me.

This program is called DelaWell, or something similar to that. I call it the “Medical Service for People Who are too Stupid to Be Alive” feature of the insurance policy. The program is provided by our health insurance as a preventative measure for people with diabetes. The very nice nurse from the service will ask questions and pretend to listen to the answers. Then she will deliver a little lecture repeating the stuff that the doctor tells me when I go see him. These nurses assume that a diabetic patient has never read anything about the condition. They assume that we have no access to computers, libraries or the literature that litters the doctor’s waiting room or the little waiting area in the pharmacies where we get our prescriptions filled. I don’t know about other people but when I was informed that I am diabetic I did a little research. It didn’t take a whole lot of checking to see that I’d need to make some changes to my cheese steak and french fries lifestyle, which I did. Mostly.

When the nurse calls she (usually it’s a she) asks the same set of questions about weight, diet, exercise and so forth. Since she asks the same questions every time I figure I can give her the same answers, so I do. Then she asks if I’m depressed, tired, having trouble sleeping and if I’ve checked my feet. Those are all valid questions but, again, if she listened at all, or consulted her computer screen which has all the answers from almost two years of this crap, she’d see that her time would be better spent with a patient who wants to let the disease destroy his or her body. I’m not on that plan. But I suppose there are medical protocols that have to be followed. And I’m sure that these nurses, sitting in their call centers or home offices, are sincere in their desire to help people and not just make a few bucks charging the State of Delaware some exorbitant fee for their service.
Well I’ve shared enough of my personal opinions about this stuff. The phone’s ringing again. It might be somebody from DelaWell, somebody selling diabetic supplies or an estate planning telemarketer. How all these companies learned I was diabetic and on my last legs I can only guess. I’m sure a reputable health and wellness advisory service provider would never give away their client lists. No, I’m sure they’d sell it for a tidy sum.

Have a fine day. I will.