Vacation
by Doug Ulman
Vacation is over – at least mine is although I know many people are on spring break this week. I tried my hardest to detach myself from work for a few days and it was quite enjoyable. That said, I decided to read fiction (which I so rarely do) and I picked up John Grisham’s new best-seller, The Appeal. For those of you who have not read it I recommend it highly but it was impossible to detach completely because the book details a county where cancer rates skyrocketed due to contaminated water. Simply a great read. Another story of this disease’s impact on this country and our world.
I was just reading the Wall Street Journal (March 11th) and I was moved by the article entitled “Insurers Pressed to Pay More for Prostheses.” Having traveled the country for the past six years working with the President√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s Cancer Panel I remember vividly this issue being raised during our series of hearings on survivorship. I will never forget the parent of a young adult who testified that her son, who had his leg amputated as a result of his osteosarcoma, was only eligible for one prostheses. Let me explain further. Her son was diagnosed as a young child and yet he was only given access to once covered prosthetic leg. What happens when he is 18? What happens when he is 30? What happens when he is 40? This young man, and thousands just like him, deserve to have prosthetics. Period.
This is yet another example of the inequities of our system. It is unconscionable. All insurance companies know better. They need to act. We will be watching.
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about 1 hour ago from Jacob_Pratt (Jacob Pratt)
In 2001, I was climbing up the trail to the top of Diamondhead on Oahu without a care in the world. Nowadays, I hobble for a couple of hours in the morning to take pain meds so I can walk a bit better and get through the day with an internal knee/thigh prosthesis , the scars of osteosarcoma. I WILL make the San Jose ride this summer, even if my friends have to push me the last 5 miles.
This time last year, I was in a hospital bed, thinking about how nice it would be to stop throwing up, and to live. How screwed up it was that I had to pay a 1/3 of my disability benefits to an insurance company that fought with me for every medication treatment and therapy request. How I had to be my own advocate, even on the sickest of days.
Cancer is bad enough as it is, you shouldn’t have to suffer at the hands of some company that is only interested in counting beans.
The system is broken. I was an ER nurse before I went through osteosarcoma. We do NOT take care of people adequately in this country.
All it takes is one critical illness to destroy a person.
When healthcare is treated as a humanitarian issue instead of a business issue, maybe then things can change. I sure don’t see any politicians with good answers. It’s up to the people.
The survivors.
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