by Vicki Phipps

Created on: December 19, 2009   Last Updated: February 29, 2012

Born and raised in the USA, I’ve always defined myself as an American, but the moment I became a born again American was the defining moment I chose to vote for hope. It was a choice I made in 2008 and the faith I maintain today came through hard earned experience within decades of identity issues which ironically lead me to the most defining moment of my life.  Until then I’d only been defined by the hard times I’d survived within the land of the brave. That’s fine but I’d like to move beyond simply surviving hard times, and as brave as that made me, maybe God knew I’d only change my view and improve my attitude through a rude awakening?

In the decades before the campaign of 2008, I’d survived being defined as a bad luck queen. Now I see that although free enterprise is great, it’s the hope and faith of the tired and poor that make the United States great. It’s those tired, poor huddled masses yearning to be free who made free enterprise great. It's us who keeps the monopoly of big companies in their place. Still, it took me decades to find that insight, and before 2008, I was identified as a bankrupt, bitter ex-wife, and as justified as it seemed to be an angry American, the bitterness brewed into a toxic stew that poisoned me with, "The Big C." Ironically, this identity only came to me soon after reducing the benefits of my high priced medical insurance policy, just to save money, so apparently justice never comes from being angry, bitter or mean.

Beyond that fact, I’ve come to see that there’s no disease or country that cares how unaware or unprepared we might be. There was no one to blame, so I simply believed I was cursed, but my identity got worse when I began to realize that remission doesn’t mean I’m cured of anything. My health care needs would be at the mercy of the medical insurance industry for the rest of my life. Talk about control, it’s the medical insurance industry who own control of which treatments I receive, regardless of what my Oncologist says I need to maintain any immunity.

It’s a rude and an expensive issue to remain cancer free from an incurable but treatable disease for life, so I remained identified by a disease until four years went by and I lost my eye sight. It happened literally over night. Not one of six medical specialists could tell me why, so after they did all they could do for me, they sent me home to, "wait and see," ironically,

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