lisa
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I agree with Lainy and Kris. When I was in the hospital, I would wake up with a smile and be friendly to the nurses and doctors. Although I will fight until the end, my faith tells me where I will end up. That gives me great comfort, and makes it possible for me to have a good attitude while at the same time fighting for my life.
Each and every life is precious to God, and he puts us here for a reason. I want to stay here until He is done with me.
Louise,
I share your viewpoint. God does have a timeline, and no doctor can really know when our time is up.My youngest daughter will graduated from high school in 2010, and hopefully from college in 2014.
My middle daughter will graduate from a two year program in 2012.
My son will graduate from teaching college (including one year internship) in 2013.
So I just have to hang in there another 5 years
God bless you all!
Love,
LisaThanks, Lainy. I would love to see grandbabies some day, too
I forgot to say that the scan did not show any lymph node involvement. YEA!
Hi Elaine and Gary,
I certainly hope that you can find something that works to stop the progress of this terrible disease. Naples, Florida does sound wonderful. I hope you will enjoy your time there.What I meant by Sweden being insular is that it really isn’t on the radar of most people. People don’t learn Swedish as a second language as they do English. People aren’t clamoring to get in to Sweden, and Sweden doesn’t have the influence as a global power like the U.S. does. I don’t have anything against Sweden – it sounds like a wonderful country. I’m half Finnish myself and would love to visit Scandanavia. But it certainly doesn’t face the same challenges that the U.S. does.
I do agree with you that it is a mentality issue. We Americans were raised with the idea that anyone can be successful. Our Revolution was based on a rebellion against British taxation, among other things, so the idea of higher taxes and the gov’t taking care of us from cradle to grave does go against the grain of the American psyche. Our Founding Fathers believed in less government, not more, and carefully structured the Constitution to keep government intrusion in our lives to a minimum.
As I said before, I am still conflicted about health care reform. I do need the help, and sometimes we can’t just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. I’m literally going broke and in danger of losing my home because of insurance premiums and co-pays.
However, when I think of health care reform, I think of the long lines and poor service provided by other gov’t agencies such as DMV, Post Office, DSHS. If the gov’t can’t provide enough staff to meet demand for something as basic as the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, how can it guarantee doctors and services for the increased demand of “free” health care?
My uncle is a dentist in Ontario, and he basically takes a month off every year after his quota is made. He is only paid a certain amount by the gov’t, and after that, any service he provides he is not paid for.
This is a very interesting discussion, and something that we are all intimately concerned about.
Kris,
I am so glad that you are getting such good care in Sweden. But Sweden is not the US – the US has many times the population of that relatively small country. We have many challenges that Sweden – a relatively insular nation – does not have. And our politicians would not be caught dead (haha) on public medicine. They will keep their own gold-plated plans, as they keep their other gold-plated perks that are denied to us common folk.I am certainly not saying that our health care system does not have problems. It does – such as the gap between COBRA and Medicaid.
The devil is in the details of the plan that apparently many members of Congress haven’t even read. One part that steams me is that citizens are required to pay into the plan in order to get benefits, but illegal aliens are not required to pay into the plan, but they will still be covered by it. How is that fair to the US, legal, taxpaying citizen?
By the way, I don’t care what race anyone is, but if a person is coming to this country to live here permanently, it is only fair that he or she does it leagally.
If I immigrated to Sweden illegally, would I get the same health care that a legal citizen or resident of Sweden gets? Just wondering!
Mary, I don’t trust the same government that runs the DMV, Post Office, and Cash for Clunkers to efficiently run a health care system
Medicaid and Medicare don’t reimburse providers for the real costs of care, and Medicare forces people to purchase supplemental insurance anyway. Both programs bleed cash from the US Treasury. There is no reason to doubt that a new government run health care system would be any different. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that it will cost money, and lots of it, and won’t save any money. We already know that cholangiocarcinoma is not a cancer that can be really caught in its early stages, except by accident. We don’t have enough CT machines and MRI machines in this country to screen every single person once a year – and that it what it would take to catch some cancers early.BC/BS has not yet denied any procedure or medication for me. Yes, I am concerned about what to do between when Medicaid kicks in and BC/BS runs out. But I’ll cross that road when I come to it. Should we upend the entire health care system based on those cases that slip through the cracks? Or should we address the cracks in the system, like the gap between COBRA and Medicaid?
My relatives are Canadian, and they tell me of the wait times that they have for procedures. It’s ridiculous. My aunt had a very painful foot condition, and had to wait 9 months for surgery. My other aunt had breast cancer and had to wait three months for surgery.
This is a link to the official Canadian gov’t agency for wait times for surgery:
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/transformation/wait_times/public/wt_public_mn.htmlAlso, the death rates from cancer in Canada and the UK are greater than they are here.
I think we do need insurance reform, especially tort reform, but I don’t think we need socialized medicine.
I think we have a respectful disagreement here…
Lisa
I am very conflicted on the proposed health care reform.
COBRA payments and medical co-payments are making it impossible for me to keep my home. I just found out that my plan changed so that I have a $120 co-pay every time I get an infusion. It’s horrible to have financial stress when you are dealing with terminal cancer.
But on the other hand, as Jamie said, the new system would have to enforce rationing, and who would be the first ones to be rationed? The elderly and people like us with an incurable cancer diagnosis. There would be no incentive to keep people like us alive when we cost the gov’t so much money.
I had been perfectly healthy my whole life before being diagnosed with cc.
No medications, x-rays, chemical exposure or any of the other risk factors.
We have no idea why this started.
I’m sorry to hear about your father as well. As has been said before, it is best to consult with the oncologist about what effects chemo will have on him and whether it will realistically prolong his life or be too harsh to tolerate.
At 85, personally I would go for quality of life that I had left rather than do chemo. But that is just my opinion, and you have to do what is best for your family.
God bless you,
LisaHi,
What general area do you and your mother live? We have members all over the US and beyond who would be happy to share their doctor’s names and cancer centers with you.I think you can ask for a copy of the records for yourself or you can ask the doctor to forward the records to the next doctor.
Is your mom in northern or southern Oregon? If you are in northern Oregon, the Cancer Care Alliance is in Seattle, and Dr. Philip Gold (one of my doctors) has experience in cc. You could stay with me if you needed to, though I’m 60 miles from Seattle.
I don’t know about docs or facilities in California.
