Comments on: Vacation http://blog.livestrong.org/2008/03/11/vacation/ Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:46:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Diane Acosta http://blog.livestrong.org/2008/03/11/vacation/#comment-359 Diane Acosta Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:04:28 +0000 http://livestrongblog.org/2008/03/11/vacation/#comment-359 In 2001, I was climbing up the trail to the top of Diamondhead on Oahu without a care in the world. Nowadays, I hobble for a couple of hours in the morning to take pain meds so I can walk a bit better and get through the day with an internal knee/thigh prosthesis , the scars of osteosarcoma. I WILL make the San Jose ride this summer, even if my friends have to push me the last 5 miles. This time last year, I was in a hospital bed, thinking about how nice it would be to stop throwing up, and to live. How screwed up it was that I had to pay a 1/3 of my disability benefits to an insurance company that fought with me for every medication treatment and therapy request. How I had to be my own advocate, even on the sickest of days. Cancer is bad enough as it is, you shouldn't have to suffer at the hands of some company that is only interested in counting beans. The system is broken. I was an ER nurse before I went through osteosarcoma. We do NOT take care of people adequately in this country. All it takes is one critical illness to destroy a person. When healthcare is treated as a humanitarian issue instead of a business issue, maybe then things can change. I sure don't see any politicians with good answers. It's up to the people. The survivors. US In 2001, I was climbing up the trail to the top of Diamondhead on Oahu without a care in the world. Nowadays, I hobble for a couple of hours in the morning to take pain meds so I can walk a bit better and get through the day with an internal knee/thigh prosthesis , the scars of osteosarcoma. I WILL make the San Jose ride this summer, even if my friends have to push me the last 5 miles.
This time last year, I was in a hospital bed, thinking about how nice it would be to stop throwing up, and to live. How screwed up it was that I had to pay a 1/3 of my disability benefits to an insurance company that fought with me for every medication treatment and therapy request. How I had to be my own advocate, even on the sickest of days.
Cancer is bad enough as it is, you shouldn’t have to suffer at the hands of some company that is only interested in counting beans.

The system is broken. I was an ER nurse before I went through osteosarcoma. We do NOT take care of people adequately in this country.
All it takes is one critical illness to destroy a person.
When healthcare is treated as a humanitarian issue instead of a business issue, maybe then things can change. I sure don’t see any politicians with good answers. It’s up to the people.
The survivors.

US

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