DoctorD's Ovuncular Observations & Episodic Diary

What goes around, comes around.

Finding it very difficult to cope with the death of my wife nine years ago, my own illness, and retirement from a long and satisfying career, I have sought the help of a social worker, a counselor.

Today is the anniversary of her own husband's death, exactly one year ago. It has been painful to her just as it was to me. I've tried to give her some support as best I can.

I have become something of an expert on grief and death.

Another funeral

We attended on Saturday the funeral of a friend, a woman that I had worked with during my stint in Corporate America some 25 years ago.  We kept in touch after we each left those jobs, and were able to have lunch every month or two.  I appreciated that:  I was doing too much work at home, all alone, and was glad to have someone to take a mid-day break with.

She died, from what we understand, not so much from a disease but from the side-effects of a medication that was supposed to improve her condition, a relatively newly-released drug.  It didn't.

My friend was my age, 69.  As my own age goes up, that is starting to sound unfairly young to me.  But my own wife died at age 60.  That, of course, seems worse.

The total cost of her treatment in the hospital ICU was over a million dollars.  Exactly who is going to pay this, how much of that cost will fall on her husband, has not yet been determined.  Judging from my own experiences, it may not be for quite a while.