the bad attitude part

A perfectly healthy person is turned into a cancer patient almost overnight. There is something radically unhealthy about this.

I am one of those employed, insured Americans - like the people in "Sicko". Of course I have to stay employed to stay solvent and insured. So I go back to work after a painful biopsy, after getting a cancer diagnosis, a few days after surgery, after every radiation treatment.

Speaking of money, the biopsy alone cost about $4,000 and I'm not sure all the charges are in yet, a month later. Yes, my insurance will cover much of it. But I won't be saving for retirement, maintaining my home, or buying a new laptop anytime soon. The only part of the economy I'm supporting is healthcare.

If I'm investing in my life, buying time in the future, I'm not sure that's a good deal. I might be buying years of poor health, years when I don't have enough money because so much went to pay for those years.

My mamos and PET scans are scattered all over the city. Eight different physicians billed for their role in the partial masectomy - two of them I never saw because I was lying face down on a table with a hole for my breast and they were underneath injecting it. Another, a pathologist, seems to be in Louisianna. I have appointments with a surgeon, a radiation oncologist, and a regular oncologist marked on my calender. And, because I had breast conserving surgery, I have another mamogram this week.

This sucks.