Elder CareTips:
Mastering The Eldercare Maze™
January 2,
2007
Happy New
Year everyone. This issue of Elder CareTips
inaugurates our new publishing schedule...look
for us every other Tuesday henceforth.
| May all your troubles
last as long as your New Year's resolutions!
|
Just to get a little work out of
the way this first "real" day of 2007, here are the
numbers you'll have to work with this year. If ever
there were a wake-up call about remembering to sign up
for a secondary/MediGap policy, these numbers are it.
Check out the
Medicare 2007 Premiums & Co-Payments and then go
lie down for a few minutes. You'll need to.
This marvelous story came my way via Alan
Weiss, who writes a thought-provoking monthly newsletter
that is always first on my "to-read" list when it arrives.
He graciously allows pass-alongs. I believe this is truly
worthy of your time.
Top 10 Ways To
Prepare For
The Unexpected
|
By Nancy
Michaels
nmichaels@impressionimpact.com
I’ve often mentioned in past speeches I’ve delivered on
Perfecting Your Pitch, or How to Grow Your Business, the
print that hangs in my office that is the Chinese symbol for
“crisis.” Comprised of two characters: one represents
danger, the other represents opportunity. So often in life,
it’s a challenge to see the opportunity in the midst of a
catastrophe.
In May 2005, I was stricken by a virus that attacked my
organs. Within one week of entering the hospital, I had
received a new liver from a 21-year-old donor in Tennessee
who tragically died in an automobile accident on May 21,
2005 – one evening before my transplant surgery.
Because I was blessed with a healthy life, I was caught
completely off-guard by the events that would redefine my
life and my priorities.
I’d like to share with each of you, my Top 10 List – only
this time, it’s not about sales and marketing issues – it’s
about the practical matters we all need to address in our
lives as responsible adults.
Please feel free to share this with a friend. If one person
can benefit from this advice, I’ll be grateful, once again.
1. Be medically insured.
Thankfully, we had just changed our health insurance
provider mere months before liver failure dealt its near
fatal blow. After three months at Beth Israel Deaconess
Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, five weeks' stay at
Spaulding Rehab, and eight subsequent return visits to BI
for 2-11 nights at a stretch, my medical bills I’m sure are
in the millions – I have had to pay a minute fraction of
these bills.
2. Retain a health care proxy.
Who do you want making medical decisions for you if you are
unable? Fortunately, I was conscious when I arrived at the
hospital and was able to sign my parents on as my health
care proxy. Otherwise, my estranged husband would have had
been the one in charge of making medical decisions on my
behalf. Whether you agree or disagree with the findings of
the Terry Schiavo case, one thing is for sure – you want to
be certain the right person is making life and death
decisions on your behalf. If you don’t currently have a
health care proxy, or question who yours is, ask someone to
take on this important role.
3. Write a living will.
If you’re unable to utilize the services of an attorney,
head on over to Office Depot and purchase a standard living
will. Write down your desires, make copies of it and give it
to one or two loved ones and keep the original in a safe
deposit box.
4. Purchase long-term health care and disability
insurance.
This is something I didn’t have, but wish I did. I was
unable to care for myself after being discharged from BI in
October of last year. In April of this year, I went out on
my own again and have made slow and steady improvement ever
since. Having that financial cushion of insurance coverage
would have eased the stress in my life significantly.
5. Surround yourself with a great team of people.
Fortunately, I have the most incredible family – two
parents, three brothers and their wives – that anyone could
wish for. I count several others who surrounded me with
their warmth, compassion, love and companionship during my
darkest hours as true friends. Those who didn’t reach out, I
now know were probably never my friends. I’ve been saddened
by their response to me in my most dire time of need,
however, am very grateful to know who my true friends are
and always have been.
6. Surround yourself with a great professional team of
people.
How lucky was I to be living in one of the world’s health
care epicenters – Boston. My surgeons, physicians and nurses
saved my life on more than one occasion. I had a great
attorney who helped me get what I needed from my hospital
bed in terms of financial support from my husband. I have an
amazing financial planner (and friend) who promises me when
I regain my financial earning power, will help me plan for
the long-haul. My CPA is on call for court appointments, tax
filing situations and overall financial advice.
7. Make your good health a priority.
In the habit of making sure everyone else in your life is
healthy? Arranging doctor’s appointments, making healthy
meals and snacks? Maybe it’s time for you to add your name
to ever-mounting “to-do” list. If you are ill for any length
of time that is unusual, request your primary care physician
run lab work. Had this been done when I continued to visit
my doctor prior to being diagnosed with liver failure, we
might have caught this in time.
8. Please sign up at the Registry of Motor Vehicles to be
an organ donor.
We all hope and pray to live long and healthy lives. In the
event that you leave this earth too soon, share your organs
so that so many others may live. I’ve always been an organ
donor, never thinking I’d be in serious need of receiving
one, but proud that I was willing to donate my organs to
help others, when in the end, I was the fortunate recipient
of such a profound gift.
9. Live a compassionate and thoughtful life.
Had I not lived, I don’t think I would have had numerous
regrets in my life. I’ve tried to always be fair and kind to
others. I love my children, family and friends and have
attempted to share myself with them as often as I could. I
also loved the work I did and the opportunity I had to earn
a living doing what I loved. I did not resent the work I
did, but I would have spent more time with my children and
more time alone.
10. Live life today.
Just as I began to feel better, I wrote down 10 things I
wanted to do in the next year. Slowly, but surely, I’m
making my way through the list. The Fox television piece was
one of my goals, in order to get the word out about how to
prepare for the unexpected. I’m booking my hotel in Park
City, Utah, this week so I can attend the Sundance Film
Festival in January – something I’ve always wanted to do,
but never made it onto my calendar. I’m traveling with two
girlfriends during the week of Thanksgiving. One friend was
by my side almost daily at the hospital. The other, flew in
for a day to see me when she first learned I was in a coma,
and flew back to California the next day. I’m also planning
a trip to Disney with my kids next year – a place we’ve
never gone despite my endless trips to Del Ray Beach, FL,
for my wonderfully loyal client, Office Depot. (Office Depot
is truly an amazing company that honored our agreement for
me to produce their Web Café series www.officedepot.com/webcafe
– bedside. Thanks so much to Monica Luechtefeld at Office
Depot, and my amazing Assistant, Brittany Albright, for
keeping the balls up in the air during my absence).
Thank you for the opportunity to share my story with you. I
hope you’ll never be in need of such thoughtful planning,
however, the peace of mind you’ll achieve by making your
physical, mental and financial well-being a priority will be
rewarding enough.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
© 2007
Alan Weiss. All rights reserved.
Balancing Act® is a
monthly electronic newsletter discussing the blending of
life, work, and relationships, based on the popular
Balancing Act workshops and writing of Alan Weiss, Ph.D. For
further information contact
balancingact@summitconsulting.com.
|
Elder
CareTips:
Video Tips |
Do you learn
best by seeing/watching? Like a chuckle? Video
Jug offers a vast selection of how-to films
obviously made by amateurs. Some of them are
just plain fun (How to Suck An Egg Into A
Bottle...try this one with your kid) and some
are truly useful. On the useful list are
How To Help Someone Who Is Feeling Faint and
How To Check Your Pulse.
| Be always at war with
your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and
let each New Year find you a better man.
|
Here's wishing you a prosperous,
peaceful and fulfilling New Year. Happy 2007 to you
and yours,
Best always,
 |
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