My First Blogging Award!! Yay!

So, I came home the other evening, to find that I have been nominated for the Brillante Weblog Premio 2008 Award, by Eric S. who writes “Ruminations of a Small Town Mountain Boy“.  As he states in his post about the 7 people he has nominated, this award is given “for brilliant, happy and interesting blogs with sparkling style”, and was established in 2005.

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Fruity Pebbled Pickled Peppers and PET Scans

So I am writing from my crackberry because I’m too lazy to sit at my desktop, my laptop is so slow it’s annoying me, and I wanted to be able to write before my temazepam takes it’s last swing on me and I am out for the night. As I mentioned in last nights post, I have been way out of it the past few days. Today has been much better - but I am still in a dizzy phase. Constantly dizzy, at least it’s a fun dizzy feeling… This post is mainly to serve as a daily recap of things going on right now.

My tastebuds are pretty much nonexistent at this point. Can’t taste anything, (wow I fell asleep writing this… Good morning!) Read more

2008 Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Mission Statement (Video)

Support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society… They help to save lives, and if you have Leukemia or Lymphoma, call them.  You need their help.

God Bless American’t

Now, those that know me know that I am not usually one for political propaganda, if you will. (Unless it involves Bush and the 911 thing, but I won’t even begin to go into that here.) And I am normally don’t rely on one person’s personal opinion before forming my own. And I know when I mention this person’s name some of you will cringe, and maybe even turn away from my website… But the other day I watched Michael Moore’s Sicko, and I think he raised some very good points. Well, not even the fact of raising points, but what he showed in his film about other nation’s healthcare systems versus ours in the United States is just astonishing.

Please don’t perceive me as naive. I am sure every nation has their “healthcare flaws”, and I know things were only put in the film that would benefit his (Michael Moore) cause. But it really makes you think! Everyone knows the US is built on big business. It seems that is all we are about. Long gone is the All-American Dream. Long gone are the ideals of white picket fences, a secure economy, job security, 2.5 kids per family with the hard working dad to provide for his family and the nurturing stay-at-home mom. And what about healthcare? Decades past one was honored to have a good job that offered great benefits: paid time off, vacation time, sick time, retirement and pensions…good affordable health insurance! Do such jobs outside of Corporate America for Upper Management still exist? Honestly ask yourself, how good is your benefit package and how good is your health insurance plan?

I learned tonight that there are very few laws that govern group health insurance plans because back in 1972, they (whomever the governing they happened to be) wanted to be able to get most employers to pick up group policies to offer their employees. Why? MONEY! If there were too many laws and “regulations” no one would go for it, and a multi-billion (?) trillion (?) dollar industry would not have been able to thrive. But what about this thought? (a very good point that Michael does bring up in his documentary) Our safety (police and fire) organizations are government run, even our public library system is government run, but one of the most important factors of our life - healthcare - is non-regulated to allow it to remain a public industry. And insurance companies can do whatever they want…often with little or no repercussion.

There was a lady that spoke in his film because she was denied health insurance because she didn’t disclose the fact that she had a yeast infection prior to applying for her policy. A yeast infection! Good God! Apparently there are people who hold the position of specifically scoping out weaknesses in people to deny them health coverage. They go through any or all of your health history to find any (and it takes just one) weakness to justify declination of benefits. And if you have an individual health plan, forget it! They have even more “freedom” than corporate group plans. I also learned tonight that individual plans only have to abide by state laws, whereas corporate group policies must abide by the few federal laws there are. I am insured by a corporate policy…thank God, I think.

The social worker at the cancer center I attend, told me last week that if I were to switch jobs, that the new corporate policy I applied for, under federal law, could not be denied. But then, there are exclusions. They can tell me they will cover me, but not for anything Hodgkin’s related. Or they can say they will cover me, but not for anything “pre-existing” for a period of 12 months. I also learned that if for some reason I were to leave my job, if my corporate group plan lapses for more than 63 days, I could be in trouble getting insurance at a new job. By law they have to cover me, but unfortunately the law doesn’t say how much or even how.

And then let’s not get started on those that are denied treatment, even in life-threatening situations, because they don’t have ANY coverage or they don’t accept the coverage they DO have at that specific facility. C’mon, people! These are human lives we are talking about, and people die, all at the cost of big business. What happens if I reach my maximum yearly coverage dollar amount this year? Will I not be able to receive my chemo treatments again until next year? What happens if I can’t afford my co-pay, will the doctor no longer see me? Will my Hodgkin’s be allowed to progress all because of money. I don’t know how you feel about it, but the last time I checked there was no monetary value on someone’s life.

There are even people that are sick because they were rescue workers at ground zero for September 11th. They are so sick they are unable to work, cannot afford health insurance, and their ailments, caused by the tragedy are progressing and going untreated because they can’t afford to get better. Our government will not even HELP THEM when they were the ones putting their lives at risk helping our nation.

And then we go a little, ok a lot, south of New York where our rescue workers put their lives on the line during our moment of tradgey to try to save those in our nation, to Guantanamo Bay. We have there some of the worst terrorists that have conspired against our country, threatened the well-being of our nation and have killed hundreds or thousands of our American citizens and they are there receiving primo FREE healthcare and warm meals. What is wrong with this picture?!

Ok, so you go to another country that has free healthcare. They treat anyone that is sick, with any ailment, disease, condition, syndrome and the like. No questions asked, no lengthy questionnaires, no denial based on previous health issues. They are treated. You say their taxes are higher…SO WHAT!? At least people aren’t dying because their country has failed them. At least they are not suffering because the nation that they are so proud to stand beside is not letting them down. And not only are these people living longer and healthier because they are being treated, their governments actually support them getting better, no matter the monetary cost. They offer mandatory days off for rest and relaxation, they offer a minimum amount of days that an employer has to offer their employees for sick time. They offer, paid by the government, time off for recuperation from a sickness.

I am a single mom, trying to support my 2 daughters, working everyday through Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and chemo treatments. There was a young gentleman that appeared in Sicko and told his story. Living here in America he found out he had a tumor. He moved back to France, where he is from because he did not have health insurance here. Having never worked or paid taxes in France, they treated his tumor with chemotherapy for free and then granted him 3 months off after he acheived remission to rest. He spent the next 3 months in the beautiful warm South of France, paid! And all he needed was a doctor’s note. The government paid 65% of his wages, while his employer provided the other 35% so that he suffered no loss of wages. And I can’t even take a day off from feeling bad or sick from my sickness without worrying if my unpaid loss of work will be protected by FMLA.

I appreciate the thoughts of Obama and Clinton, fighting for affordable health insurance for everyone. But who defines affordable, is it the hard-working middle or lower class American that has to pay for it or some state or federally employed social worker that forces us to abide by the rules and guidelines set forth by the people in DC who drive their nice cars and live in their million dollar homes who have no clue what it’s like to live in reality? And who defines what type of coverage we will get and how well it will cover us, because right now, our federal and state laws do little to protect us from this industry.

You should watch the movie. I’m not saying that to try to sway you on any one particular opinion, but just so you become aware of what’s out there if you aren’t. It really opened my eyes to how the US Government has not done more to help it’s hard working citizens, and would rather thousands of people die each year instead of taking a step to better things. To better our nation. To better our well-being. I have rambled on long enough. Take it or leave it. Perhaps my view is a little jaded, or let’s say a little more passionate because right now I am too consumed with being a sufferer, when I should be concentrating on being a survivor. I encourage your comments on this. Not to start a political debate, or to encourage the flaming of myself or anyone else that may reply, but to get some honest opinions on this. Let me know what you think, but I guess all that I have left to say about the subject is “God Bless American’t!”.

Edit:  I ran across a website that explains that healthcare is a business and we live in a country with a broken healthcare system.  Read this excerpt:

One day, Mrs. Kelly says, nurses wouldn’t change the chemotherapy bag in her pump until her husband made a new payment. She says she sat for an hour hooked up to a pump that beeped that it was out of medicine, until he returned with proof of payment.

Taken from Charity Governance.

I pray that I am never at the cancer center and that happens to me.  How freakin’ pathetic.  God Bless American’t.