World Cancer Day or the next Fyre Festival ad? But in all seriousness, increase your awareness around cancer. It impacts homes, workplaces, schools, and relationships for lifetimes – even if you’re lucky to get to remission. I’m going to use today to cover a cancer topic that makes my blood boil and my eyes water.
Insurance is proving to fit the horrible stereotypes. It’s deeply emotional when they tell me that 18 days after chemo that I could have worked full time without any holding back and are rejecting months of disability. Looking back at that version of myself in Oct and imagining packing up my laptop and struggling to make it into work and through a day makes me break down. I had zero stamina, standing and walking killed me, I couldn’t work my hands properly because of neuropathy, and overall I was unbelievably weak. Let’s not even go into the mental mess.
I know I’m saying this from a position of comfort. I’m fed, warm, and have savings to help me keep living my life. With those and with ‘good insurance’ and my crazy chemo regimen, I am still stressed out fighting insurance, and it is surprisingly deeply emotional. Then I think that if I’m this impacted, what is it like for those who have to carry the full financial burden themselves while literally fighting for their lives?
Healthcare and the ability to catch things early, to have HOPE that a treatment works, and to focus on healing should be every human’s right. Hope is hard enough to muster up when “cancer” is a new part of your identity. It wasn’t something I was very passionate about before, and I’m still naive and under informed, but it’s all different now 8 months and 8 days since they found a mass in my chest. I don’t know the solution, but I am going to get more involved in the efforts around it. Hopefully this can help some others reconsider or revisit the topic too.