We’re having another health crisis at my house.  Of course these things always happen on a weekend and a holiday.

This time my mom, who is 81, has a reoccurring   sever eye infection.  We need to call the eye doctor, but he isn’t in and probably won’t be until tomorrow.  Of course we could go to the emergency room, but after hours of frustrating waiting, they’ll only patch up the eye and tell her to call her regular physician when he’s in.  She’s better off waiting at home where she’s comfortable.

I don’t have to explain what a problem this is for caregivers. 

We all know that often we can’t really get help when we need it because our system is too complicated.  We live in strange times when we have very sophisticated  medicine but the delivery of it is somewhat sub par.  It’s only going to get worse. 

So we’ll spend our holiday worrying  and continuing   to watch mother’s  eye, while getting ready to do battle tomorrow for a place in the eye doctor’s patient line.  And there are no guarantees and it means losing a day of work during our busiest season of the year. (We’re in real estate.)  

But this also reminds me  that the  Governor of Tennessee,  who had  made his personal fortune in health care,  recently hired Federal Express as consultants to try to figure out how to better organize state bureaucracy.  Maybe companies like Federal Express could do something for the health care industry in general.

Don’t laugh, I don’t think it’s that far fetched.  If we can get an Amazon delivery within hours, why can’t we get some relief for our chronic health conditions, or at least see a doctor?  Am I asking for too much here? Amazon doesn’t stop your order because it’s a weekend.  

How many of us  who are caregivers face these types of situations every day?

I came across an article by  Pamela Varkony who has been through this very same maze for the last few months.  Pamela describes herself as "informed" and wonders what the uninformed do.  That’s a good question. 

One solution, which we are all predicting will gain popularity in the future, is to hire a health care project manager.  Maybe that doesn’t seem so far-fetched now that many of our aging parents have  three to six or seven doctors and specialists they have to see on a regular basis. 

Read Health Care Barrel Ride Can Be Disorienting

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