The first thing I learned about my new Medicare card is that it?s hard to fit in my wallet. Made of paper, not laminated, it?s a tad bigger than the slots perfectly sized for a credit card, a drivers license or my Blue Cross-Blue Shield card, which until Sept. 1, the start of the month of my 65th birthday, had been my ticket to health care.
My mother?s card, in her wallet for 23 years, still looked starched and clean at her death at 88. I was too busy asking existential questions at the end of her life to inquire about how she managed more mundane things (ditto her recipe for stuffed cabbage and pot roast). By the end of the first day I used it, my card was wrinkled, smudged and almost torn.
I dropped my new Medicare card near the receptionist?s desk on its maiden outing, didn?t notice it had gone missing, went to the ladies? room, looked for it and freaked when it wasn?t where it belonged. The receptionist saw it fall to the ground and retrieved it. But if all of our blunders are expressions of the unconscious, as Freud would have it, this one was laughably simple to decode: my fear of turning 65.
I hadn?t blinked at 30, back when all good girls were supposed to be married and I wasn?t. At 40, I heard the faint ticking of the biological clock. I considered having a child alone and decided, without terrible angst, that I could not. Fifty, to my surprise, just wasn?t a biggie. And 60 was actually fun: I celebrated a don?t-look-half-bad-for-my-age birthday.
Then came 65, a punch to the gut. This is the beginning of the period the Census Bureau defines as ?old.? Sixty-five to 84 is one big demographic clump ? a dated notion, pun intended. Still, describing myself as middle-aged now is lying.
One of the best parts of being old was supposed to be Medicare. You pay taxes throughout your working life and in exchange, not as a mulligan, you?re promised health care in your dotage. But my ophthalmologist, the first doctor I saw as a Medicare recipient, said if I believed that these days, I probably believed in Tinker Bell. Right now, he suggested, my health insurance future depends on a dozen undecided voters in Colorado.
At the time, the good doctor and I had embarked on the fifth effort to fix a problem with my eye. As he fiddled, I made a mental list of the various expensive medications I?d used over recent months. Nevanac. Vigamox. Durezol. Even with good private medical insurance, those drops had cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars in co-pays.
Now I was on Medicare Part D. I?d carefully selected from dozens of private insurers, matching the medications I took and each plan?s formulary. But eye surgery isn?t an ongoing health issue, like high cholesterol or osteoporosis. I realized I hadn?t a clue if I was covered for Nevanac now.
I made a mental note to call Aetna to find out, and also my pharmacist, to ask about full retail cost if the drug isn?t covered. At that moment, I wanted someone to be my ?family caregiver,?? as I?d been my mother?s. I?m capable of figuring this all out for myself, but just because I can doesn?t mean I want to.
I know this reveals a glass-half-empty attitude toward aging. All the good science shows happy old people do better than whiners, and I?m a whiner, hard-wired that way. My shelves bulge with books like ?Age Smart: How to Age Well, Stay Fit and Be Happy?? and ?Don?t Retire, Rewire.?? But I don?t want to rewire; I liked things fine the way they were.
In my perfect world, that means a job, not a hobby or adult education, one of those euphemisms that make my teeth hurt. But 65-year-olds don?t get jobs in this economy. I have savings, a home not on the brink of foreclosure, long-term care insurance. In today?s overall American economy, I?m in the 99 percent; in terms of security in my old age, I?m a lucky 1 percenter. Spoiled, you must be thinking.
When my friends and I go out now, we talk about cataracts, basal cell carcinoma, joint replacements, lumpectomies, the difference between forgetting your keys and forgetting what keys are for. It?s an ?organ recital,? as my mother used to say. I work for myself, but some days my job is to go to the doctor, despite a blessedly short list of maladies. I?ve forgotten how people with 9-to-5 jobs do what?s expected of them, keep all their body parts in working order and also go to the dry-cleaner or out to see a movie.
Did I miss the part of health class in junior high school when they prepare you for this? I remember the part about adolescence, a life stage that included acne, hormones and thinking your parents are idiots. Maybe 65, as defined in the era of The New Old Age, wasn?t part of the curriculum back then. I had no idea this was coming, and I don?t like it a bit.
Source: http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/old-myself-and-none-too-pleased/
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