October 23-- Good news from Ireland

There’s lots of news and it all seems great. So, I’ll move from the political to the private here. I’m just back from about a week in the West, visiting friends in Colorado and attending the wedding of my niece Cathy Charley in Oregon.

But I’ll start with some fresh news, I called my cousin Peggy T. in Ireland this morning and the word is that the cysts in her neck and head that were so worrisome are “clear.” She may not have to go in for surgery at all.

Peggy and I have been corresponding now since I think 1971. I began saving the letters sometime in the early 1980’s. I found a stack of them recently. The computer and lower cost telephone calls has cut into our written correspondence in the last years. But it is still a remarkable thing to think that we’ve been corresponding all this time.

Her daughter Helen married in Ireland in June. That was the reason we flew there. Helen’s wedding was a great country wedding complete with the bride wearing Wellington boots for the removal of the garter.

Vincie and Peggy have owned and operated the family farm in the years since they married, coincidentally on the same weekend as the death of Elvis Presley. From a subsistence farm, it grew. Patsy, Vincie’s brother and partner combined his operations with Vincie’s some time ago. The farm, at first a dairy operation, now produces dry cattle.

The news, briefly told to me by Patsy, was great to hear. The blog, of course started when Jane had a cancer scare in August. So, the health of the family has always been at its heart.

The other interesting part of this is that we discuss health care around the table. Jane, the RN, is always concerned about increasing coverage for people. And, the loss of my employment in August put the issue of Ceili and my health care on the table for discussion. How could we afford medical coverage of Ceili and I?

I’m not sure what the system of health care is in Ireland. I thought at one time that it was a single-payer (socialized or national) system. However, I’ve been told that it is not completely single-payer. Apparently there is an element of national health in the system, but that the private insurance industry is still important.

I suspect that Peggy was not covered for this procedure by any private insurance, as she was aware of the issue of her cysts in June. It took four months to make a determination of her health. That sounds like a national system to me. However, friends there tell me they purchase levels of private insurance for coverage. We could discuss how this system worked and didn’t work going forward, but it is instructive that Peggy had to wait at least four months to be told her cyst was not threatening.

Anyway, great news from Ireland this morning.