Hello blog-readers! I'm delighted to report that the CT scan I had yesterday showed that, as I thought, the chemo is working to shrink the tumors, at least a little. I feel so much better than I did in mid-September, before I started back on chemo, that I thought it had to be working. In fact I was so un-stressed-out about seeing the oncologist this time that my blood pressure was only 116/60, or something ridiculous like that. But it was nice to have it confirmed.
But the cost! Forget about side effects-- I mean the dollar cost of this therapy (oxalyplatin, for those who like details). I learned today that it is $14,000 per month! It's entirely covered by insurance--Medicare, in my case. But it's kind of breathtaking to think about whether one's life is "worth" so much money. When my father was in the hospital, just before he died, he was adamant about refusing even relatively routine tests--a CT scan of his head, I think was one--on the grounds that we spend way too much money on the last six months of life, and it would be money much better directed toward prenatal and infant care so that perhaps the US would join other developed countries in reducing infant mortality. My dad was adamant that I read a book he'd just read on the subject of rationing health care in this way.
At the time, of course, I said, "But you're talking about public policy, and we're talking about you. Two different things." And of course they are two different things--and I'm not going to stop chemo that's improving my quality of life, just to save Medicare $14,000 a month that wouldn't go to prenatal or infant care anyway. But it did give me pause.
And I'd be very interested in your comments on this. You don't need to be a "member" of anything to comment. Just hit the comment button and post your reaction. I will be moderating the comments, but be assured that anything you say about this will be published.
And hey-- thanks for paying your taxes and contributing to my improved health!
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5 comments:
Face it Judy, chemo for you is a far, far better use of public funds than bombs for anywhere. Or, it feels less threatening to think of it another way, you're worth more to us than a couple of federally funded ashtrays and a toilet seat!
I think that you touch on an interesting point. Six months ago, I would have completely agreed with your father. Why spend that kind of money? Let's help an infant or do stem cell research or work on PARP inhibitors, etc. However, helping my own mother, a BRCA carrier, die in July from breast and pancreatic cancer, changed my opinion. I think a life is something you can't put a price on. Especially quality of life. If chemo improves quality of life, then who cares about the cost. I'm happy my tax dollars are going towards your chemo! Also, Stage IV cancers are not necessarily always treated as a death sentence-- it's now viewed by many as a "chronic condition". A person I know, also BRCA positive, has stage IV breast cancer with mets to the lungs (8 nodules) After VERY expensive chemo, she just get a Pet/CT scan and was declared NED. The original tumor is gone and the 8 nodes are gone, too. Obviously, they may not be "gone gone" as she'll require extensive monitoring, but for her, they're GONE. What about her if she was told that chemo was too expensive?
Money is money. We can't take it with us. There are far worse things that it could be spent on-- like the last poster said-- bombs and toilet seats, right?
Your father -- who, for readers who might not know, was my father, too -- made those decisions when he was more than two decades older than you are, was already hospitalized, and was facing a minimum of many more weeks or some months of a severely diminished life in a hospital and a rehab facility 600 miles from his home.
Keep on keeping on, please. I'm confident that when the time comes for you to change course, you'll do it with appropriate concern for other people.
Susie took the words from my keyboard (he was my father, too). If the issue is quality of life, it's hard to put a price on that.
Dad also felt his mind was going, and his mind was everything to him. He would not live as a drooling shell in a nursing home.
But from my perspective (as a wildlife biologist who has never been interested in children of my own), it seems that we spend an inordinate amount of money on the BEGINNING of life, too. In nature, if there are chicks, kits, pups or other offspring that don't measure up because of severe physical or mental disability, these young animals usually die at the very beginning of life.
So here we are, touting all-out, do everything children's health care (CHIPS) without considering the parents as well. If a parent gets sick, does not seek help because of cost and dies, what happens to the children? Good, Wisonsin-style health care needs to be made available to everyone, especially the parents.
But I digress. I wonder sometimes if we don't cling to life too much. One thing I've learned in the 18 years since I, too, had Hodgkin's, is that there are things that are far worse than death in this world.
I can't speak for Judy, though I KNOW that I could never face a recurrance of disease with as much grace, beauty and public fearlessness as she does. Note that I don't include courage. Courage comes in when you have a choice to stay or run. With this you simply do what you have to.
Dear Judy,
Those of us who are now or will someday be in that great insurance pool with you hope that the people we don't care about will drop dead quickly, thereby increasing the funds available for those we hold dear.
Of course, that's a statistical improbability of the highest order.
So since there's no knowing who among us will need protracted and expensive care, just consider yourself the lucky beneficiary (financially speaking) of the great health-care lottery. My Medicare tax money is being well spent on you.
Your sometimes-too-rational but always caring friend of 55 years,
Fred
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