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The cutting was over; the stitches were in; the pain was slight; and there I was, wide awake in a comfortable hospital room, welcoming 2008 with painful questions.For the hundredth time I found myself asking, Why me?
But wait—it may not be what you’re thinking.
Why was it that I could expect excellent doctors to plan a therapy regime that would probably shrink the grapefruit-sized cancerous “mass” and add still more years to my 68? What about the others? Without access to good doctors and advanced medical technology, is it likely that they would not become of their “mass” until it was the size of a melon—and perhaps too late?
Waking Up
The anesthesia had worn off, and the only real discomfort came from the dangling questions. December had brought surprise and new awareness. I needed some quiet time to process it all, and the turn of the year seemed appropriate. So I turned off the TV and scribbled what follows.
To hear I had been invaded by cancer was a bummer. But from the very start that unwelcome surprise was softened by awareness that I was one of the lucky ones. No, not “lucky”—privileged.
A health insurance card lay in the white knapsack full of privilege that I carry around with me, usually without much awareness on my part. The voice of conscience was whispering that it is not right to be unaware. One out of six Americans have no insurance card in their knapsack or in the plastic bag that serves as their chest of drawers. Is that the America of which we were once so proud?
It started with my swollen right leg. No big deal, I thought; I had simply sprained that ankle too many times playing basketball. And besides, varicose veins run in my family. Small wonder my blood was having trouble circulating down that way.
But at my annual physical my doctor saw it differently. We needed to find out what was causing the swelling. Sclerotherapy, a sophisticated, expensive procedure seemed indicated, but would my insurance cover it? It would, so we went ahead.
But the swelling got worse, suggesting some kind of blockage higher up. Enter the world of multimillion-dollar technology—CT-scan, PET-scan, and pinpointing of the mass, followed quickly by a needle biopsy. All covered by insurance.
It looked like lymphoma. But the oncologist wanted to be sure of exactly what variety of lymphoma it was before he decided what the optimum treatment regime might be. Hence, the New Year’s Eve surgery and extraction of tissue immediately dispatched to the Mayo Clinic for a thorough pathology report. See what I mean about privileged?
Stress Tests...
My thoughts went back to the thallium stress test before the surgery. The nurses injected some dye and measured my heart on an accelerating treadmill to induce stress. They encouraged me, and stood ready to catch me if I fell off. I found myself thinking of less benign ways to induce stress—stress positions, sensory deprivation, and what President Bush calls “an alternative set of procedures.” And my thoughts went to Guantanamo and the hundreds of prisoners flown there in shackles with no assurance they would survive the kind of deliberately induced stress they would encounter there.
And then they strapped me onto a narrow gurney where I had to remain still for twenty minutes while another million-dollar machine hovered low over my chest and took pictures. There were two technicians and nurses there to ensure my comfort and allay my concerns. And I thought of the gurneys of Guantanamo and the strapped-in prisoners surrounded by other kinds of folks, including physicians and psychologists who, in a mockery of the Hippocratic oath, do their best to inflict, not alleviate pain.
...and Suicide
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