Warming Up!

And I mean warming up in two senses: first, a report on the warm Caribbean, before memories of my short and very wonderful vacation last week fade into the next snowstorm (due tomorrow, 5-8 inches, according to the too-trusty weatherman); and second, another little rant on the issue of health insurance.

The Virgin Islands were wonderful, despite the obvious degradation of one of my erstwhile favorite spots on earth, the Baths (batholiths) on Virgin Gorda in the British Virgins. When I first saw them, in the late 1970s, they, and the beach, were pristine and virtually deserted. Ten years later, there were more people, and the water (which collects in shallow pools between the house-size boulders) seemed less clear, though that might have been because of surf roiling the sand. I was a little apprehensive about returning after another 20 years had gone by, but I decided to take a day-long boat tour of the BVI, partly because I love boat rides, and partly because the tour included a snorkeling opportunity at the sea caves on Norman Island. (More about that later.) The Baths were the morning part of the tour, and when we got there, I discovered that in the last year, someone has installed some ladders and boardwalks so that instead of clambering over the boulders or swimming through the deeper pools of water, tourists can pretty easily walk through what used to be a bit of an obstacle course. And now cruise ships visit the Baths! In fact there was a huge group from a cruise ship just ahead of us. Definitely not the experience of a lifetime. I was really glad I'd been there before; this time, I could just people-watch and reflect on the pros and cons of tourism. Because of course I was a tourist, too.

And I did a lot of touristing in only four days: sitting on the beach at the Bolongo Bay resort near my friend Jackie's condo; taking the ferry to St. John's, and then an hour-long city bus trip (for $1!) all the way across the island to a snorkeling site protected from the big rollers coming in on the north shore of the island; wandering through the shops on St. Thomas and watching the cruise ship tourists look for "bargains" (one day there were 5 cruise ships in the harbor, each carrying about 2,000 passengers); and eating the most fabulous fish, wahoo, that had probably been swimming in the ocean only two hours before, at Epernay, an excellent restaurant on St. Thomas.

I had expected to snorkel and see a lot of pretty fish. As it turned out, the St. John's snorkeling spot was mostly dead reef, except for very far out-- but even more problematic, I discovered that although I could deal with the snorkel just fine, I'm not strong enough to swim very far. I was appalled, in fact, at how weak my arms seemed, and how quickly I tired--like in five minutes, swimming off the boat at Norman Island, I realized I'd better turn around and get back on board. Yesterday I went to the health club to swim in the warm water pool (the cold water in the regular lap pool just knocks the breath out of me); only ten lengths, which in that pool are very short--and only two of those lengths crawl--practically did me in. This morning I mentioned that to one of the trainers who teaches warm water classes and she pointed out that anemia and hypothyroidism, both of which I have as a consequence of chemo, really affect strength and stamina. So be it. Even though I couldn't really snorkel, and didn't get to see the fan coral in the sea caves, I was so thrilled to be in the warm Caribbean celebrating three years' survival with stomach cancer, it didn't matter. I did get to swim with a big school of yellow-tailed fish attracted by bread thrown off our tour boat, and in my imagination, I saw tangs and starfish and rays and sharks and all the other pretty and intriguing inhabitants of the deep that I've snorkeled with in the Galapagos, off Hawaii, and in the Caribbean on past trips. The experience reminded me of the movie, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," which I saw a month or two ago. If you haven't seen it, definitely do go.

And now for the health insurance rant. This morning, I went to pick up my cello, which spent its vacation having some minor repairs done. My luthier friend had a heart attack last year, and I asked him how he was doing. He told me that his health was stable, but as we talked, I heard his insurance horror story. He was (fortunately, probably) in Cleveland when he had the attack, and so he had surgery and spent at least two weeks at the Cleveland Clinic. He and his wife are self-employed as string instrument builders and repairers. She's older than he is, and eligible for Medicare, so he carries his own insurance, as an individual, through the company (not an HMO) that also insures Madison teachers as a group. The insurance company, once he had the heart attack, did its best to cancel his policy and refused to pay the $200,000 he owed for his treatment in Cleveland! As my friend said, they like to insure two kinds of people: dead ones and well ones. And since he was neither--and wasn't part of a group policy--they singled him out as a bad and much-too-expensive risk. It took many months, the services of a lawyer, and the threat of a law suit to get the insurance company to back down. Imagine going through all that stress while trying to recover from a serious heart attack! Of course, insurance companies count on sick people not having the energy to fight for their rights. And the skyrocketing cost of health care is largely due to increased administrative expenses, including the many very smart (according to my friend) and presumably well-paid insurance company employees who spent months trying to defend their employer against my friend's "unreasonable" claim.

None of the health reform packages that feature private insurance--which is to say, none of the reform packages proposed by current Democratic or Republican presidential candidates--will cure this sort of denial-of-benefits problem. Which is one reason my friend now sports a Canadian flag on his bumper. And why we should all push hard for single-payer, not just "universal," health insurance.

Finally, two announcements. First, a reminder that I will be reading from my memoir on fear at Avol's Bookstore in Madison, Tuesday evening February 19, 7 PM. Y'all come! Second, I've decided to try to update this blog every Monday. That will give those of you who've had trouble subscribing a set time to check for new posts. See you next Monday!