Fortunately, I can mute TV advertisements that seem to me to be inane and disconnected from the real world. In the fall, viewers are overwhelmed by ads for medical insurance. However, they ceased when the enrollment period ended.

Nonetheless, we have to watch specialty ads for prescription injection pens. Big Pharma spends more than $5-6 billion on TV ads annually. To make matters worse, their ads are twice as long as the run-of-the-mill TV commercials.

This ad for Skyrizi suggests that if you take this drug, you will be smiling all the time, especially when you are looking for oysters for lunch. It seems to me that if you have a medical problem, your doctor would be the person to find the best treatment plan.

However, I’m getting ahead of myself related to my medical concerns. Let me start at the beginning. If or when you reach my age, 82, you also might have medical concerns. During my journey down the yellow brick road of my life, I have led death on the dancefloor of my life...twice. Both dances were in 2008. In January, I had a Robotic-Assisted Laparoscopic Prostatectomy (RALP). It was done as an outpatient. However, the cancer had spread, which meant I had to have two months of daily radiation.

In May, I fell off a ladder and cracked my head against a retaining wall. As a result, I had a subdural hematoma, which is bleeding in the brain. That was two months in the ICU and nearly two months at a rehab hospital. That dance caused me to restart my life. I had spent all the time in the ICU in bed and almost all of the time at the rehab hospital in bed.

I don’t wish to relive either dance, but in retrospect, those two medical traumas were blessings. Dancing with death taught me that my clock is ticking. Everyone knows they aren’t immortal...intellectually. However, do the dance once or twice, and you know it in your very being.

Therefore, I admit it. I take care of myself. I exercise every day by walking my dog around the lake in sunshine or snow. It takes an hour to circumnavigate the lake. I take prescribed meds and try to get plenty of sleep.

However, I have some issues related to my medical treatment. The concerns aren’t at the patient-doctor level but at the pharmaceutical and insurance levels.

I give myself shots twice a month for one of my ailments. It takes two minutes or less for me to administer the shot. I brush my teeth nearly as long as I prepare the shot, injecting it, and disposing of the injection pen.

The pharmaceutical company emailed me several months ago, announcing that I didn’t have to call each month for my two injection pens; I could enroll online, and it would be done automatically. I filled out the form and returned it.

When I was supposed to get the two shots, they never came. I called the company and told them that I filled out the form, but shots never arrived. The person said that they didn’t have anything on file from me.

So, the next month, I refilled the form. When the two pens should have arrived and didn’t, I called again and was given the same reply that I had gotten the month before. So, I re-resubmitted the form. Are you seeing a pattern?

Last month, I called and said politely that I had filled out three forms and returned them to the company. Then I asked to speak with the person’s supervisor. To wit, she asked what I needed. I summarized the problem again and was told that she would transfer me to a pharmacist. As the pharmacist gets on the line, the person tells the pharmacist the situation. And then she adds that she noticed that I had filled in the form.

I cut into her explanation to the pharmacist and said that I didn’t know why I had to chat with the pharmacist. Then, she said that she had just noticed one of the three forms that I had filled in and had returned it. She replied something to the effect that it was just a mistake. I added that a medical mistake was repeated for several months.

I wasn’t ordering a pair of shoes on Amazon. It was two shots that I take monthly to address a medical issue.

Ironically, around the time of the last conversation, I was having problems with an appointment for a lab test. And like the problem getting injection pens, it wasn’t between the local provider and me. I had an appointment for a test, and its duration.

Then, I would get emails from the corporate office about my appointment, and each time, the times of the test were different. However, the health care provider of the lab test didn’t get the change. Therefore, I didn’t show up for the lab work.

When I rescheduled the test, I’d get another email from the corporate office, and the times were different. I was a no-show several times due to the emails from the corporate office. Finally, in desperation, I called the hospital and explained the run-around I was getting from the corporate office’s emails.

The head of that department at the hospital explained that I wasn’t the first person to face erroneous emails. She said she would schedule the appointment and to ignore any emails changing the time. I went to the appointment at the time I was scheduled, and the lab work went fine.

After the lab work was completed, I returned home relieved that everything functioned correctly. I thought about my family in Myanmar. Myanmar is a developing country, along with 2/3 of the rest of the world. I wondered whether my family had ever heard of injection pens, let alone ever administered shots to themselves.

I wrote to my family about the lab test. I had to explain everything about the reason for the lab test. I’m waiting to hear back about a litany of questions about medical things that Americans take for granted.

America and New Zealand are the only countries that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise on TV. Big Pharma is pushing specialty drugs, usually in injection pens. Big Pharma spends billions of dollars on TV advertising of these drugs. Additionally, the ads are inane. They feature happy marches.

America’s pharmaceutical companies rattle me, and they should rattle you. We are fortunate in this country. We possess more than other nations. Nearly 2/3 of the world's population lives on $7.00 per day. Many people in the world rarely, if ever, see a dentist, eye doctor, or cardiologist.

I’m alive today due to a subdural hematoma, which occurred when I fell off a ladder. The surgeon said before the operation that I had a 50-50 chance of making it through the surgery, let alone what I’d like if I did.

I’m fortunate to be alive, and I am fully aware that my clock is ticking. My two times of leading death on my dancefloor of life forced me into appreciating life. Regardless of whether you have done the dance or not, we need to address the disconnect between the treatment and care of all Americans. There are those in Washington who care less about those without millions of dollars.

We also need to address our national indifference to 2/3 of the world. We are all a part of the human family. If you needed assistance with medicine and the other necessities of life, how would you feel about the indifference of others?

Remember my mantra: “It is in giving that we get.”