The Good The Bad and The Ugly

This is my reality, here is what I’m going to do.

I’ve been on a writing hiatus, needed a break from the face off. Of course this thing I call cancer has as always been waiting in the wings like my personal dark shadow.
After the Hike for Hope and all the praise heaped upon me, I fell underneath its weight. I don’t know if it’s the meds or the cancer or just the sum of it all. Seems to me that when you’re at the peak of strength and determination , well there’s only one place to go. Yeh I know it’s a roller coaster ride most wouldn’t want to take, but my comrades in this  cancer thing know of what I speak. It’s like when you cry, the tears block your line of vision. When you’re done, you can see again clearly. Irony is a sea we all swim in and cancer is no different, with cancer irony is your next door neighbor.
Three weeks after I finished the fundraiser hike I was greeted with my medical bill. The paper work was convoluted at best, impossible to make out what charges meant. When I called for some help to decode all of it the voice on the other end wanted to help, but in the end made it even worse. Walking me through each day was like going back to the scene of a bad accident, I finally had to stop him. Charges that were described as one thing were actually meant to be something else, because of lack of “space” on the bill, they had to condense it in a way that made no sense to the patient. At the time my wife was away and I had no advocate which makes it all the more difficult. I consider myself a pretty tough guy that under these circumstances my machismo works in a positive way, but faced with this daunting task I crumbled. What allowed me to get through this maze was the fact that I could. ‘This is my reality; here is what I am going to do,’ That’s my M.O. but what about the millions of others that can’t ? After all I’m not the only one. This happens every day, day in day out; to the weak, to the infirm, to the most vulnerable. You’re sick, you’re facing the worst time of your life and now you have to deal with the billing department and the insurance company. For most I imagine, just wither and fade. Now don’t get me wrong, I am indebted  ( now that’s irony ) to the doctors and the treatments that are trying to save my life, but somehow it would be nice and beneficial to the patient not to feel like you are inside some  great big machine. I’m grateful I have insurance, I can’t imagine what would have happened otherwise. My treatment which is pretty standard for my stage cancer was racking up on some days $14,500… a day. That’s right, imagine not having insurance.

So my job continues to bring about awareness through the study that will be done by Dr. Paul Nguyen, curbing the side effects of radiation and chemo through exercise. You can go to www.adkhikeforhope.org and contribute to this just cause because cancer patients need all the help they can get.

Peace