Blogger, heal thyself

With all the news about the complicated and downright farcically bureaucratic prescription drug plans for seniors, I find myself wondering: are all seniors on drugs?
Is there a certain point where humans have now exceeded life expectancy and are simply kept alive by cocktails of prescription drugs, doled out each day from plastic compartments? Is this what we all have to look forward to? Are there actually seniors out there, say, in their 80s, who don’t take at least half a dozen pills per day?
I don’t take any prescription medication; it may be that I am strangely healthy or I am deluding myself that I am, but I have never been a fan of taking drugs. I probably feel like they should provide an immediate benefit, but that’s never the case. I took Zoloft for a while, which did lessen the severity of my migraines, and people claimed that I was easier to get along with. But it just kind of dulled everything and made me feel uncreative, so I just stopped. I’m like that, self-medicating and self-stopping. Being in an HMO, no doctors really seem to care if you do — at least, if I had doctors. Haven’t had one for the better part of the last decade, I always saw whatever nurse practitioner was on duty, and sometimes just called in and told them my symptoms.
Today I have Kaiser, and because I am paying for it entirely on my own I feel like I should at least visit them once and get a physical or something. But I’m worried that if I do, they will find a laundry list of things wrong with me, and suddenly I’ll be sick. And popping six pills a day.