I am presently running the investments on my Mothers 403b’s money. The people that the Teacher’s Union had running it were really pretty bad. Beyond that, I don’t have to, nor will have to support her. She has the Teacher’s pension which is quite nice as well as almost full coverage for medical as part of her retirement (Blue Shield). Other than 2 hospitalizations, she is pretty healthy (I am trying to get her to be more physically active though). She is past median lifespan.
My father passed away a few years years back, and he was about 10 years past median lifespan. Initial thoughts were that he was going to outlive my Mother because he hiked regularly (and was as stubborn as hell). Unfortunately he decided to do ‘holistic’ tooth care instead of proper care. The result was gingivitis progressing to tooth loss. The bacteria ended up getting into his bloodstream and attacking the heart, resulting in CHF (Congestive Heart Failure). In his case, one side was more damaged than the other as well as increased turbulence within the heart (increased stroke risk). The result is that you need to take drugs to make one side beat stronger (to compensate for the CHF) as well as a blood thinner. Only one big problem was that he was inconsistent in taking the blood thinner. At that time I didn’t know much about the drugs involved, otherwise I would have pushed him to take Aspirin instead of Warfarin/Coumadin. Aspirin is more predictable and has a longer life (almost 11 days compared to about 3 for Warfarin) within the body. If you miss a dose of Aspirin, just take it the next day.. with Warfarin, you have to be much more careful. Suffice it to say, he missed doses of Warfarin, resulting in more than one stroke. The last one did significant damage. He had to be placed in a Nursing home (was careful about which one, because some of them are pretty bad). He still had enough presence of mind to know what was happening and what had happened to his mind from the stroke. He did not want to continue, so about 1 year after the last stroke, he starved himself to death. He had sufficient funds to continue the Nursing home for more than 10 years.
We didn’t order forced feeding because he didn’t wish it. It was something we discussed as a family a long time ago. My family likes to ‘go out’ with our boots on. We don’t like to having last memory of ourselves as being a barely conscious blob of protoplasm for our loved ones. When it is time to go, it is time to go!. We see continuing under a terminal, painful condition.. as torture. Living like that, is not living.
Sorry if the Father part is TMI (Too Much Info). I do want to emphasize that people pay attention to their health care, and not always doing exactly what a doctor requests without asking questions. It is your body, your health, your life – be involved. Dental care is surprisingly important. The bacteria that attack your teeth will attack your heart if it gets into the bloodstream. Also be aware of alternate drugs to what is normally prescribed. Sometimes an alternate is better, sometimes a generic or off patent drug will do just as well or better… and it won’t leave as much of a financial dent.
