Dear Group, As most of you know I'm trying my best to recover from my recent radical mastectomy surgery. It hasn't been easy by no means, but I wanted to say something about Jane, the Aide who shows up promptly at 10:30 in the morning three times a week. Now in the first place, I'm not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination and Jane is lucky if I'm even out of bed at that early hour. But we now have an arrangement where she calls me on the phone to wake me up prior to her arrival. And it seems to be working. By the time she arrives I'm at least out of bed and downstairs and I have presence of mind to unlock the kitchen door so that I won't have to do that when she arrives. She's a very chirpy person and, of course, at that early hour, it's all that I can do to give her any sort of civil response. Generally, I just grunt an acknowledgement of her arrival. But she understands. That's the way I am. She's very patient with me as I stumble around with my cup of morning tea and she just waits for me to let her know what I need her to do for me during the time she's there. But at that early hour, I hardly have a clue. But in the meantime, Jane just looks around and goes right ahead to dust or scrub or clean whatever she feels needs to be done. She continues to surprise me. But here's the thing of it. Aide Jane isn't just an ordinary "cleaning woman." She's actually an LPN and when I need assistance taking a bath. she knows just what to do. Lordy, even if I were totally helpless, she would be able to scrub me from head to toe, dry me off tenderly and get me back on my feet in the most caring manner. As a result of Jane's visits over these past few weeks, my house has begun to sparkle more than I would care to admit to over the years due to my own neglect,. Yes, I admit that her "chirpyness" is driving me up the wall so early in the morning, but the bottom line is that in my "senior years," I have someone like Jane to take care of a whole bunch of "stuff" that right now I'm not capable of doing for myself. Now who is taking care of the bill for her services? Well, in my confused mind right now, I can only assume that the Veteran's Administration (US goverment) is paying for it--I'm a veteran, you know.. However, I feel that Medicare or Medicaid (I'm in NY, you know) are also footing the bill. And juss in case you wonder where some of your tax dollars are going to, well, maybe I just told you. Still hanging in here, vee