I have been blessed (with one exception) with top quality healthcare professionals my whole life. But there is one person who stands head and shoulders above the rest. Our family doctor, a board certified internist at PA Hospital in Philadelphia.
When my husband died five years ago I was desperately bereft. After the dust of the funeral had settled I made an appointment with Dr. Bob. He had cared for my husband long before I was in the picture so he had experienced his own loss with Pat’s death.
During that first visit we both cried. Then he prescribed an unusual regimen for me: he referred me to a psychiatrist who specialized in loss. Then he said he wanted me to come in every month to see him for a check-up. His concern was that grief can have a negative physiological effect. He wanted to check to see how I was surviving. So for the first year of widowhood I saw him regularly. On month thirteen he pronounced me in good hands with my counselor and said he wanted to see me on my usual pre-grief schedule.
My counseling continued with ever-decreasing frequency for three years. Finally, I “graduated” to using the coping skills I had learned on my own. But I will always be grateful to Dr. Bob for his remarkable support and care. I was finally on the road to being healthy. And I never felt alone.
Both of these extraordinary doctors are now enjoying active retirement. And I am so grateful they retired after I was no longer in distress.
Forgive me if I’ve got this wrong, if you don’t talk to guys then please just tell me and forget all this. I’m a guy 72 yrs old married and wondered if part of your remit was to give advice to someone who has a totally negative view of life, e.g. me. My glass is always half empty, it will rain tomorrow (and I need the sun – I live in northern England). I constantly complain about things and drive my extremely understanding wife crazy. I really want to be upbeat, and I have everything going for me, a younger wife, two houses in the country and a super little terrier dog. I also have a lovely daughter and 3 super grandchildren (though they live 300 miles away), they are 4, 6 and 8 years old. I don’t owe any money, and we have a little house in France we can go to for our holidays. 
It was September 2005 when my mother was diagnosed with cancer on the base of her tongue. It was Labor Day 2005, to be exact. We got the call confirming what we hoped wasn’t true, that the biopsy was cancer, squamous cell carcinoma. And like that, in an instant, we were all flung into the world of cancer. Any of you who have been there, or are there, know what I am talking about. Suddenly you have immediate appointments with several doctors who recommend several scans. This insane whirlwind led me the first of two binders I made for my mom during her battle with cancer.
I am hoping others reply to this, I am an RN (it will be 30 years next year) and am having to cobra my health insurance at great expense because I couldn’t any longer keep up with my main hospital job on a busy postpartum floor. I had another job at the same time and am still doing that, but it has no benefits. I would like to ask others, especially in California, what individual health insurance programs are the best?
