Yes

by SLLawson

Created on: August 25, 2009

The health-care-reform debate, which seems to be turning into fear mongering from the right and the silly need for bipartisanship from the left, causes me to shed tears over the fears being pushed on the American people, which may be causing proponents to back off. I had great hopes that our new president would take the bull by the horns and usher in a new more equitable way of life by virtue of the fact, he could. He has a majority in all branches of government, many allies and direct experience with a broken health care system; a mother who battled insurance companies as she drew her last breath and died of cancer. How many similar stories around the country are there? I'll tell you - too many to count. Here's my one little story; put yourself in my shoes.

My daughter, a young newlywed, worked, went to school, paid her taxes and had a husband who did the same. But after her husband's job moved them back to his hometown, she had to quit her job and thus, lost her insurance. She had been suffering for several months with intermittent fevers, an uncontrollable cough and flu like symptoms and had been treated a couple of times with antibiotics. Now, without insurance, they researched insurance companies trying to find coverage they could afford since her husband's construction job did not offer insurance. With only one income, and my daughter still too sick to even think of searching for work, not even a major medical plan fit into their limited budget.

A month after their move, she became so tired of having difficulty breathing, having to sleep sitting up, and the intermittent fevers and drenching night sweats, she paid out-of-pocket for a doctor visit and was sent for a simple chest x-ray. What that x-ray showed would change their lives forever. A 14 x 11 x 8 cm mass loomed largely in her primary media steinem. It had collapsed her right lung, infiltrated her heart, and had in the exact words on the initial report, obliterated her superior vena cava, the main vein that carries oxygenated blood to the heart. We wondered how long this bright, beautiful young woman would survive since she didn't have health insurance, and the county hospital where she was diagnosed didn't have the staff to treat her serious condition.

She was lucky. She lives in California and Medi-Cal, the government run health program for people who can't afford insurance, approved her request for full medical coverage. After five days of searching for a facility to take her case, the head of the Out-Patient Cancer Center and Blood and Marrow Donor program at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Dr. Michael Lill, agreed to take her on. Five days afater diagnosis she was transported by ambulance to the Sapperstein Critical Care Center at CSMC. After almost a month in critical care, she was sent home and allowed to come back as an out-patient for the additional chemotherapy treatments and the 30 days of radiation to the huge mass in her chest. About eight months after diagnosis she was given a clean bill of health and told to go home, gain some weight, grow her hair back and try not to think about cancer anymore.

Two weeks later she underwent emergency brain surgery when after complaining of headaches, neck pain and vomiting her doctor ordered a head scan. There, on the scan in her frontal lobe, sat a glowing ball about 6 cm in size. Her cancer had metastasized to her brain.

A scar across the top of her head from ear to ear reminds her of the metal plate that now replaces her forehead, and the titanium screws that hold the plate to her skull. Her hair covers it now, but the numbness around it reminds her it's still there. Months more of chemotherapy requiring five-day-stays in the hospital every two weeks would surely do the trick this time. Surely this treatment that takes up so much of the time that she would rather spend with her husband at home , or working in a job in child development, finishing her schooling, would do the trick. Surely these toxic chemicals would kill anything that wished to do further harm to her already fragile body, surely...surely...

The bad news came on a day when her husband had finally left to go home because they had decided to keep her an extra day in the hospital this time. I had been with her for the first three days before he got there. We tried to never leave her alone during her hospital stays. But this time - this one time when she needed us the most...

It was her sixth chemo treatment for what was to be eight rounds. A team of doctors walked in her room, some she knew; others were strangers. They surrounded her bed and the nightmare began anew. Even though they had removed any visible indication that a brain tumor ever existed, those little tiny microscopic cancerous organisms had not given up their fight to take over her body. Her tumor had returned yet again. After concluding that her cancer was so aggressive that the best chemotherapy and radiation available was not enough and could kill her, she was informed, while without the support of loving family with her, that a stem cell transplant was her only hope - without it she would die.

I won't even begin to tell the story of the heartache a mother, a husband, a father, a sister a brother have to witness when someone they love is brought to the brink of death in order for a chance at life. Suffice it to say I have never before cried out to God with such fervor as I did during those hours as I watched her body swell; a reaction to the heavy steroids they were giving her, and her digestive system violently reacting to the poison coursing through her veins. As her platelet levels diminished the nurses couldn't even draw blood without her hemorrhaging profusely. Transfusion after transfusion was given to keep her from literally dying from having no immune system at all. For over a month the process moved forward step by grueling step until the vital life giving stem cells were injected into her ravaged body. Her white cell, red cell and platelet counts had been brought nearly to the level of extinction in the hopes that these new purified stem cells would recreate an immune system free of any cancer cells at all.

It worked. Within six weeks of her stem cell transplant her labs and scans showed the miraculous truth; she now had a cancer free immune system with all the right combination of disease fighting cells in her body. That was a year and a half ago. Today she is alive, thanks to God, medical science, and government run health care - but uninsurable; considered too high of a risk for any insurance company to take on. If (and we pray this never happens) her cancer ever returns, it will be the responsibility of the state once again to pay the bills for the necessary life saving procedures.

Sure it's going to cost to fix the health care system. It may even require a tax increase. President Obama promises he will only tax those making over $250,000 a year. I don't make anywhere near that much, but I would gladly pay a little more in taxes to ensure my daughter and the 48 million other Americans without coverage are able to get affordable health insurance for themselves and their families. I won't even notice the extra money out of my paycheck. Maybe I'll skip a movie a month, or a few trips to my local coffee lounge. But at the end of the day what I will notice is the gratification of knowing I cared; I cared more about my fellow humans than I did about my own profit margin, or my own indulgent luxuries. Health care reform will also eliminate the pre-existing condition clause that keeps good, hard working people from the coverage they desperately need. It also has provisions for health education to help people understand and manage their own lives in order to avoid conditions related to poor lifestyle choices. How many of those pushing to squash health care reform have ever been without insurance, or watched someone they love die or almost die because they didn't have it? And for those who say, but anyone needing health care can go to an Emergency Dept, think about this; how many people in emergency-rooms who are in serious need of emergency medicine will die because those without a choice use the ER as their doctor's office for non life-threatening illness. And because those who use the ED for routine care usually don't pay their bills, those costs are passed on to the insured.

Will Obama's Health Care Reform be effective? Only time will tell. But if we continue to do nothing, in the next decade those pushing against it will be awakened to the harsh reality that they no longer can afford their own premiums, and may finally understand why this is so important for our country - right now!

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