Published August 6, 2023: Like the majority of the world’s population, I’m struggling to stay healthy within a cracked, if not broken, healthcare system. American healthcare is not rated particularly high on any world systems’ charts—although far from the absolute bottom. We’re too expensive, too inequitable, too disjointed. It is absolutely all about the money in corporate-healthcare America—but hey, that’s capitalism.

This is a post about healthcare in Minnesota. Where one can order a main course of french fries and catsup and a dessert of cake fries and strawberry jam to maintain the healthiest of lifestyles. Go Vikings…

I am in pretty good stead actually for a little old lady in tennis shoes. It’s called Medicare (Thanks Democrats, Socialists, and intelligent human beings) and the wherewithal for a decent supplemental plan where Medicare doesn’t reach. But I’m still employed and my supplemental plan is going to feel quite expensive when it’s just me and my social security check. In Albuquerque, there are three big healthcare systems. I have chosen the University of New Mexico’s for my base as it is the only one of the three that doesn’t exist solely for purposes of making money for CEO’s and stockholders.

Me, in hopeful mode, waiting to see a doctor at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MINNESOTA

My particular tale of woe is this: I have ongoing stomach problems. Many diagnoses from many doctors. Sometimes a temporary fix. Indeed, over the years I’ve had excellent doctors at UNM, including in their gastroenterology department. However, for reasons too numerous for one blog, no long-term solution has been found. Perhaps my stomach is immune to all help, but it’s too soon to give up. Besides, it is physically and mentally enervating to know with certainty that one will feel unwell for at least awhile every single day.

So, one day I called the Mayo Clinic. It is said to take difficult cases. Said to at least respond to all requests and to actually accept many ordinary patients. Said to look at any and all conditions in an integrated way. Not like the blind men and the elephant where it’s all about which part you touch which is true of most healthcare systems. Even UNM.

And now I am one—a Mayo patient (although only for gastro-related problems). Which may or may not have resolved my issue. But we all have given it a good shot and will continue to do so. I spent three days at the Clinic at the end of June. Causal possibilities were explored. Everything connected with my vascular system was declared blameless. At this time, I (with Mayo direction) am exploring what of my unwellness might be medication-induced. Progress is being made. I am hopeful.

The world-famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, did make me feel that I was in the hands of the best healthcare system those of us outside of the 1% will ever see. The interiors of the buildings I visited were spacious and comfortably-furnished, the atmosphere was calm and welcoming, and the personnel were friendly professionals who gave every appearance of knowing what they were doing.

The Mayo was actually part of my Minnesota childhood. There were no doctors in my youth other than Dr. Franklin of Northome, Minnesota who came out to the house to treat us as often as we went into his office in town: my brother’s whooping cough, mom’s leg ulcers, my over-the-top fever with measles—and he always did the right thing to keep these various parts of our bodies functioning.

The Sunday Minneapolis Star-Tribune would often announce which Arab sheik, political leader, or Hollywood star had sought treatment at the Mayo – right there in the cornfields of southern Minnesota. The location didn’t always get compliments: A Minneapolis magazine called Artful Living quotes comedian Richard Pryor, “You know this shit is bad when you gotta go to the fucking North Pole to find out what’s wrong with you.” But from what a bit of random googling pulled up, the world’s VIPs of whatever inclination or position have kept showing up ever since—at what was recently labeled as the largest—integrated, not-for-profit, private multispecialty medical practice in the world.

The point of this post is that I am responsible for me. And if I need a doctor, lawyer, politician, teacher, artist, bookseller, or handyperson to fix something in my life, it’s up to me to find that person. End of.

So once I was on the road to, if not recovery at least new possibilities, my friend Minnesota Marge picked me up and we headed for her St. Paul abode, and talk and world-condition rants and, best of all, WALLEYE.

And then I returned to New Mexico.