“At our age we’re all dodging bullets”

Aortic valve stenosis is a defect that narrows or obstructs the aortic valve opening, making it difficult for the heart to pump blood into the aorta. Mild cases may not have symptoms initially, but they can worsen over time. My valve looked like the aortic valve with stenosis (open). The solution was replacing it with a new valve fashioned from tissue from a calf’s heart. A moo or two involuntarily creeps into my normal conversation lately. But the Doc says that’s perfectly normal and with time will disappear.

The above information is for the most part from the Mayo Clinic website. The rest is the result of a vivid imagination or the results of the morphine injected into me to ease pain

This post was written about five days after my open heart surgery.

A good friend told me that at our age we’re all dodging bullets. We’re both 76-years old. My bullet was aortic valve stenosis. Now it’s the Monday after the latest Thursday, in other words only five days after my elegant surgeon by the name of Dr. Soon Nok sawed through my chest to get at my calcified aortic valve. And when I say elegant I mean it. She’s elegant in every way – attractive, skilled, experienced and empathetic. Just what the patient ordered!

Since then I’ve been under the meticulous care of the staff at the heart surgery department at the Örebro University Hospital. And when I say meticulous that hardly describes the situation. Obviously, I haven’t experienced care at this level before. Earlier I have had vasectomy, hemorrhoid and hernia operations as well as a prostate scrape. None of these are at the same level of intensity as what I’ve gone through this time around. And I’m feeling fine. The cost of this ordeal?

Well, it’s doubled since my 60-year old body was carved into some 16 or 17-years ago, an operation the intention of which was to make me the perfect asshole. Didn’t work. As my brother Charlie put it, “You can’t create a silk purse from a sow’s ear.” I deviate.

The other day I had to lift SEK 200 (USD 24) out of my pocket to get a job done estimated at a cost in non-subsidized money of around SEK 250,000 (USD 30,000).

I’m told that my problem or some other form of heart problem is fairly common among us oldies. If that’s the case, you can wonder how many people aren’t treated for one reason or another, not least because of the consequences of poverty? We’re privileged as we all have health insurance of one kind or the other. But what happens to those without insurance? Need I ask?

Nobody in Sweden is denied care, regardless how much it costs. Here we have universal health care. And no death panels! Hopefully Sarah Palin’s contention has proved to be nonsense in the USA. I’m 76, almost 77-years old and at the heart surgery department in Örebro I was the young kid on the block.

We’ve got an election coming up in 2016. Yes, I still vote in the USA. However, I thank my lucky stars that my medical issues are attended to in Sweden and not in the land of my birth. Why? Here’s why.

Quite simply, Sweden and Europeans in general tend to see the state as a prudent safeguard and guarantor of human decency. Here the state is viewed as a noble idea and embodiment of citizens’ rights. And this is why the medical treatment here is so good and costs so little for every Swede, even for those with only residence permits.

OK, we pay taxes here. Perhaps we pay a bit more than in the USA. But, for instance, I just got something in return from what I regard as an installment plan. Inger and I paid taxes from one month to the other during our working days here to cover our health costs in retirement. We paid for our house in the same way and now we’re enjoying the fact that we applied the installment principle in both cases.

Americans, on the other hand, don’t tend to see the state as helpful. In the USA, the state is not viewed as an effective provider of a social safety net and guarantor of all citizens’ rights. On the contrary, the state is viewed as a predator on those rights. Individualism Trumps all. Pardon my weak attempt at humor as well as my generalizing.

Obviously, not all Americans view the state as evil as I’m suggesting. The political left tends not to. But the political right does. For them the state is the enemy, the perpetrator of regressive encroachment on individual freedoms.

Pay attention to this year’s crop of 16 Republican candidates for the presidency. If you’ve noticed any of them speaking on behalf of helping the weakest, sickest, most impoverished and most vulnerable among us, you haven’t noticed any of the candidates I’ve been paying attention to. On the contrary they bloviate about extending tax cuts for the richest and least vulnerable among us and paying for it by denying the poor and middle class health-care, cutting Medicare and Social Security, cutting programs that feed the poor, cutting public education, the list goes on and on.

I’ve even heard the right characterize the left in the USA as the embodiment of Scandinavian political policy. If this means promoting solidarity, human decency and the rights of all citizens, I’m all for it.

Regarding the upcoming election, if more taxes are your big issue, be happy to pay them. But be sure you get something in return for what you pay in. Perhaps you can make good health care your target. See to it that it’s available for everyone. Universal health care in other words. There’s hardly a better place to start making your tax dollar work for the good of all people!