Self medication and introspection

The medication sent home yesterday is called VANCOMYCIN HCL and the home health nurse told me yesterday that it is very powerfull. The pharmacy had first scheduled it for twice a day but they called before sending it out to tell me that I should take it only once a day and they have specified that I take it at noon today. And then take the third dose to the Huntsman Center for my appointment with Dr. Tricot tomorrow, which is at 11:00 AM. I don't understand the timing.

I had a couple of mishaps yesterday as I unhooked the antibiotic. I tuned off the valve from the bottle going into my chest, but the I forgot to turn off the valve on the tube from the bottle to my connection so the remaning fluid ran out on the table top. And then when I released some liquid from the saline solution syringe I pushed too hard and had an arc of saline across the table. Otherwise it went well and I am now ready to administer today's dose.

While sitting around doing essentially nothing I have had a lot of time to think about Obama's efforts to improve medical care for all of us and I am getting quite worried. Not about my personal outlook, but about the future for the Country. It seems to me that if universal medical coverage comes, about the only way costs can be contained when all the presently uninsured are added to coverage will be serious rationing of health care. Medicare works reasonably well for us old codgers, so much so that I can be offered state of the art treatment for my Multiple Myeloma, which certainly is costing $150,000 or more (largely coverd by Humana Insurance which we have in lieu of Medicare), but a few years from now someone will adjudge that a 79 year old codger has outlived his useful life and isn't entitled to treatment costing more than a few thousand dollars. Better to spend that money on treating people still in the working force.