Helpless In Seattle
My friend is in trouble.
I'm going to be discreet and obscure here, although I think the odds of any of you knowing my friend are pretty remote. Still, I'm respecting privacy, although I have to say some things.
My friend has a very serious medical problem. It just came out of the blue, one of those random events of life. It wasn't caused by anything my friend did, ate, smoked, drank, etc. It wasn't the result of an accident, a fall or fender bender. It's not even something that might run through a family history. It was a fluke.
It's not life-threatening, or maybe I should say it's not terminal, not at this point. Allowed to progress, it would be anybody's guess but it wouldn't be pretty. So surgery is the only option at this point.
Serious surgery. Dangerous, even, and delicate. Lots could go wrong. I know about this. And it could also be just fine, but I guarantee you that when the informed consent process starts, death will be mentioned as a risk, along with paralysis.
This is not an inconvenient situation, like living with low back pain until you finally give up and have a diskectomy or fusion. As I say, this is serious stuff.
You would like my friend. There's a "pull yourself from the bootstraps" sort of story here, raised by a single parent with not much money, probably not enough to get a good education, but persistence and hard work were always there. My friend even started a small web business, based in the home, along with other jobs, trying to carve out a life.
There are no frills that I know of. My friend lives in a small apartment without cable, and drives a pick-up truck that has seen better days. There are lots of hours at various jobs for low pay, but there are dreams and plans and movement. There is an aging parent to look after and church to go to on Sunday and responsibilities. My friend seems to take all this seriously. My friend is a good person.
My friend also is smart, and creative, and has a wicked sense of humor that I really enjoy. My friend has a lot of attributes that the world needs more of.
What my friend does not have is health insurance.
It always irritated me during the past campaign when John Kerry talked about millions of Americans without health care. We have lots of health care in this country, oodles and oodles of it, all cutting-edge, first-rate.
We just can't pay for it.
I'm thinking of Liz and Linea right now. I'm thinking of Jeremy. People who live in countries where universal access to health care is considered a national necessity. They are highly taxed for it, too, as we are for Social Security, Medicare, etc. This is how you pay for things at the community level.
Congress is debating changing the rules on personal bankruptcy. Fifty percent of personal bankruptcies are the result of medical costs, did you know that? And with all the talk about "fixing" Social Security, what's being ignored is probably our most successful social program in this country, namely Medicare. If nothing is done, in nine years or so Medicare is going to be in serious trouble. I don't mean to scare anybody. Write your representative.
I pay $1000 a month for health insurance for my family. A thousand bucks, out of pocket. And that comes with a thousand-dollar deductible for each one of us, meaning that I spend 12 grand a year and usually for nothing except cheap (relatively) prescriptions and dental coverage.
We're looking at options, although for the moment I can afford it. As I can afford my mortgage payment and my electricity payment and my phone bill. I don't have options.
I don't have a solution to offer, either, except for philosophical ones. Health care is not only big business but personal. Here in the U.S. we like our choices and our independence (until we get older, anyway). When the Clinton administration in 1993 started working on getting universal coverage, it was a disaster. They weren't ready and the opposition was, so it was DOA. There were lots of questions. Don't look at me.
But if I had to pay an extra $12,000 in taxes a year to guarantee not only health coverage for my family but for every family, I would have no problem. Some things are just too important.
Again, I have no solutions. It's a tough problem, on a cultural and economic level at the same time. We're a peculiar country. We have a big ol' wide streak of independence running through our veins. We want small government and low taxes. We want to make our own decisions, thank you. So we are an economic power and a military power and we innovate and invent and lead, and we have an astonishing rate of infant mortality and poverty and lack of health coverage for our status in the world, and maybe that's the price we pay for independence, I don't know.
All I know is that health insurance was too expensive for my friend, as hard working as my friend is. And now we have a situation.
The surgery will happen. My friend, who is younger than I am, is nobody's fool and wants to live longer, so it will happen. Maybe there will be bankruptcy. Maybe there will be personal debt that goes on for life. Tens of thousands of dollars will add up into real money, all for a fate twist and tumors.
I've thought about this all morning, since I found out. It's gnawed at me. I want to help but I don't know how. I will go to the hospital and make jokes and bring flowers and do whatever I can do, but I can't write a check to make it all better and right now I'm thinking maybe I should have thought about that being rich thing more when I was younger because I'm feeling pretty helpless.
I thought about asking for donations, using that little PayPal button I placed on the left side of my blog a while back, but there are not enough of you. I guess if each reader of this blog sent a hundred dollars we'd be in business, but you all have your own lives and problems and expenses. As do I.
So I'm left feeling helpless, which is, actually, not a bad thing for me. I tend to get busy when that happens. Just a quirk. It will be on my mind, anyway.
I will just say this, then. Some of you remember that 1970's TV movie called "Brian's Song." It was the story of Brian Piccalo, a professional football player who got cancer in the prime of his (young) life. It was a tearjerker and a melodrama, but still we watched. Part of the story was his relationship with fellow running back Gayle Sayres, a male-male, white-black bonding in the racially turbulent Sixties. Gayle Sayres was there for his friend, during the middle and at the end.
And at one point in the film, Gayle (played by Billy Dee Williams) stood up before fellow footballers and said the following, as I recall:
"I love Brian Piccalo. And tonight, I want you to get down on your knees and ask God to love Brian Piccalo, too."
Melodrama. Tearjerker. Sappy.
This is what I want, then. If you're rolling in dough, you can always send me a check to pass on to my friend, but that's probably not going to happen. So if you're a praying person, perhaps you can ask God tonight to love my friend.
God loves my friend already, of course. But it wouldn't hurt, I think.
And don't worry about the anonymity thing. God will understand. God has been well briefed this morning, trust me.
12:43:17 PM 
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