As a mixed media textile artist, I have created just another cranky crone as a place to rant outside my art. I am basically an optimist with a sense of humor and yet I find myself sounding like another old crabby woman ranting about what is wrong with kids today! Actually this post is not about the kids at all, but the old-timers.
My current hot button issue is the lack of ethics in medicine. Clearly the fact that I was surgically shortened for no other reason than vanity points to a lack of medical ethics 45 years ago. Today, it seems nothing has changed, in fact it may be worse.
All around us we see these heroic measures keeping old folks alive; i.e. extending their longevity. Modern medicine is 'fixing' problems that killed previous generations. A sweet 84 yr old lady in the locker room today showed me her chest scar, totally unsolicited, and then bragged about how she had a pacemaker put in this past January. Eighty four years old? How long is she planning to live, drive, do 3 miles on the treadmill? Another has had both knees, one hip and an ankle replaced. Granted an ankle would not kill you, but inactivity could equal pneumonia which might. Perhaps elders who have been 'fixed' will have to die of errant golf balls to the old bean in 20 years?
You see it everywhere elders having parts replaced, veins stripped, arteries ballooned,all conditions that in previous generations would have killed them. Does anyone besides me think this is absurd?
If not that, then how about the 70 yr old in India who had IVF to get pregnant? Did that doctor have any ethical issues? No. And don't even get me started on the Octomom.
My own father who has dementia was given the 'gold standard' of hip replacements this year. (I was not the decisionmaker) Every time he goes to the doctor for a checkup they xray his hip, ostensibly to make sure it has not migrated? Where is it going to go? Ka-ching...cash cow.
In a past life I managed a medical practice where I was always reminded that medicine is a business. Obviously so; otherwise why would they keep jacking up these old folks? It's what I call the greed factor. Yet no one seems to get it how crowded it is going to get in 20 years when the 'greatest generation' is still here feeling great and the 'boomers' are pushing up against the gate.
Maybe the idea is to use wars and obesity for population control?
