Righteous Indignation

I know I said that my next installment was going to be about tapping into the Y.O.U. factor in order to achieve you fitness goals, but something else got my attention. I have a tendency to be a little random in my thought processes, and writing this blog has really helped me to focus, but, I have given myself permission to veer off course when I believe the occasion calls for it.

My cousin has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. She is currently talking with surgeons and oncologists and radiologists (oh my!), about her treatment options. Scary times. Very scary times. And let’s throw one more boogie-man into this little horror scenario: she doesn’t have health care. Through some unfortunate circumstances, she was recently forced to retire at 60, and couldn’t afford to pay the insurance premiums to fill in the coverage gap between her retirement and Medicare eligibility. So now she begins the Alice in Wonderland journey of treatment options.

I read an interesting statistic the other day: life expectancy for Americans who have already reached the age of 65 is strikingly above average among industrialized nations. Why? Because Americans above age 65 actually have universal health care coverage. Medicare.

One of my clients was telling me about her breast cancer diagnosis. One of the first questions she was asked was if she had insurance, and what kind it was. Glad to see we have our priorities straight.

But back to cancer. I hate this disease. I hate it in whatever devious form it takes. It changes lives-not in a good way- and it steals our self-confidence and makes us fearful and paranoid. Even after a series of surgery, chemo and radiation, and even after the patient has been given a clean bill of health, there is always the lurking fear of its reoccurrence at each subsequent doctor’s visit.

I must tell you that after I walked in the Komen Foundation Breast Cancer 3-Day, I still wasn’t sure why I walked, except to see if I could do it. I wasn’t a survivor, and didn’t have a mother or a sister or a grandmother or aunt who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I just felt so powerless every time I heard of one more person being diagnosed, that I just got angry. So I transferred my anger to my feet, and I started walking. I don’t think that’s enough, but it’s something, and something is better than nothing at all. Unfortunately, when my cousin contacted the Komen Foundation, she was basically turned away. I’m still a little confused about that. (that might be another subject at a later date)

I am now on the universal health care band wagon. Call me a socialist. Call me a hopeless romantic. Call me crazy. But we need to do better than this. We’re AMERICA, for goodness sakes! Home of the free, land of the brave. The place where the baseball team with the most money can win 27 World Series Championships. We just need to do better.