It was a beautiful early spring day. I was working in a little patch of native plants, clearing away some pine needles and pulling dandelions. It was pretty much perfect weed picking soil, moist with spring rains but not muddy. In order to avoid stepping on the plants, I grabbed a vertical handrail support and swung myself up to the sidewalk and directly into the end of the rail. I felt and heard my rib cage crunch. Ow. When I could breathe I found that, although it was painful, I could still do some things around the yard. I was pretty sure that it would get worse, so I worked a bit and then rested inside. It did get worse. Daily it became more painful so that on day 3 almost anything I did was excruciating. Twisting, leaning over, taking a deep breath, yawning, sneezing, coughing and taking a shower. Lying down in bed was a trick. As the song goes, the rib bone's connected to the everything else bone. There was no really pain free way to lie down, though there were positions that
The cost of health care in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world, and yet we are not healthier than our peer nations. In fact, in terms of such measures as infant mortality and life span, we don't measure up. Why is this? Many people involved in providing or receiving care have some pretty good ideas about what costs so much, and what we can do to reduce costs and improve quality. Sharing these stories is an important step in creating affordable universal health care.