Years of studying health care financing and delivery does not prepare you for the actuality of dealing with a serious health event. The practical challenges of our extremely fragmented and complex health care system make it difficult to navigate this world-even when someone is there to help the patient. And, being a caregiver is a far cry from being a health care analyst. There are many lessons to be learned for improving our system: the need for skilled co-ordination support, the need for simplifying and re-orienting the various silos of postacute care, the importance of generating ways to support caregivers, and not least, promoting simple lessons in civility for providers of services.