Bromenn Hospital and Tim

Differences, What Stays the Same, Oxymoron
Hospital Stay November 2009
vs
Hospital Stay July 2008

I wound up in Bromenn Hospital with another case of Pneumonia and all the joy that goes with it. I noticed a lot of changes; some good, some bad, some inescapable and I suppose inevitable.

As in my other blogged thoughts on Bromenn which are in this blogs archives (older post - Sept, Oct 2008) I will use no names and the reader hopefully will see their selves. Since this is not meant as a critique but rather observations from some one who has nothing to do but observe. We have insurance and the blessing that brings but also allows the observations to be untainted by money issues. If you are in the hospital and paying huge amounts for generic drugs i/e $3.75 for one baby aspirin then knowing your sickness/disease is trickling away your life savings and life equity that you and your spouse had worked hard and saved for has the benefit of adding filial guilt. If you are sick enough you slide into this mind set quite easily. Good friend of mine, who has since passed away from cancer had many discussions on living wills, do not resuscitate, I don't want to live if it is only by machine. Intellectual, medical buffoonery is how these quasi noble discussions and grandiose gestures should be viewed and thought off. He did every treatment that could be done and tried alternatives from cottage cheese and flax oil, purple metal plates, biofeedback, all of which speaks to survival of Homo-sapiens i/e how important is one more week, day , hour of life. This is not meant as a criticism but as an understanding, quintessential observation.

Treatment is really a cooperative of a trinity--the patient, the doctor and the inner doctor. -- Ralph Bircher