The Philippines is my elephant’s graveyard—I’m as big as an elephant and I came here to die!
Dramatic? Maybe, but I see fellow expats debating whether to fly back to the US for treatment when illness strikes. But let’s be honest: none of us gets out of this alive and those long plane rides are hell on an older guy. Best to stay here and find the best care you can, IMO.
I like to compare the stress of a long flight and everything involved in it, gate transfers, security, etc it to what Butch Cassidy said: “you crazy, the fall will probably kill ya!”
Yes, as a disabled Marine I could walk into the VA back home and receive free care for anything I need. But the cost of that care is leaving behind the life I’ve built here. Back in the States, my support system is scattered. Those who may care if I live or die live in other states, with their own lives. To die there would be to die alone.
Here in the Philippines, the doctors are capable, treatment is affordable, and the people will not abandon you in your final moments. Like fish circling one of their own in the aquarium, Filipinos will not let you slip away unnoticed.
At 76, I’ve thrown away the mood pills I carried for 13 years. I would rather feel life—its highs and lows—than wait for death in a chemical haze. If my heart gives out tomorrow, so be it. Better to fall here, in my chosen home, than on a cramped transpacific flight chasing “maybe.”
So to the older lions, those courageous, wandering souls, nearing the final chapter: don’t fear it. Embrace it. Stay. Die where you chose to live.