A lifetime of healthcare misadventures, told backwards: ReadA Twinkle at the End now, before I rewind completely.
Most memoirs start with childhood and end with death. Mine does the opposite: I begin as an old guy on the verge of a kitchen mishap, work my way backward through Medicare mix-ups, acupuncture torture, and raisin-based arthritis remedies, until I fade out as a zygote. Think about cradle-to-grave coverage in reverse.
The story moves backward, starting with my healthcare in a Boulder, Colorado, senior cohousing community. Read about my acupuncture torture sessions and the drunken raisin arthritis cure that nearly got me evicted from my condo for being too healthy and young.
Along the way, I recount medical misadventures from my working life, like a small-town hospital merger and an emergency CPR rescue. From there, it’s a rewind through college scrapes, high school drama, adolescent sex-ed horrors, and grade-school struggles with bad eyesight and worse teeth—until I vanish as nothing more than a twinkle in my parents’ eyes.
Of course, there’s a paradox at the heart of all this: healthcare providers want to keep us alive and well, but to survive themselves, they depend on us being just sick enough to keep coming back. Cures don’t pay the bills—chronic conditions do.
According to Social Security, I’ve got about 10.4 years left on my warranty. Given my track record, I might just outlive the actuary—or the actuary might outlive me. Either way, if you want to find out how my story unwinds before I do, grab the book now. Don’t wait until I’m a twinkle. I won’t be signing copies then.
