And it's one of the blessings of stroke. You really do begin to live each day as if it were your last because, as my mother tells me, one of these days you'll be right. Every seriously ill person needs an advocate. The medical industry is dollar-driven. There are many caring people working within the industry who view patients as their top priority, but the bottom line for the industry IS the bottom line.
Every health practitioner faces pressures from every direction.
They're juggling patients, paperwork and the squeeze for profitability. Too often it's the patient's ball that will get dropped. It takes a fully healthy, aggressive advocate to help a patient through the confusing and sometimes, I'm sorry to say, indifferent labyrinth we call health care. It may not be the spouse. People who try to survive a major trauma without the help of a good psychotherapist are nuts.