Day Five Without Healthcare

      I was happy to see fellow breast cancer survivor Elizabeth Edwards on Larry king tonight. Finally someone smart and calm is speaking out against the Rabid Republicans. She was saying all the right things hopefully people were listening. It’s too bad that it would be too difficult for her to go out on the info trail opposing the bad propaganda mongers like Tommy Thompson who she was opposite on Larry King. Tommy Thompson believes that healthcare reform and the democrats will destroy the current insurance system. Elizabeth mentioned Fed Ex and UPS who have not destroyed US mail. He ignored that and said something else stupid. His wife and daughter are both breast cancer survivors and yet he thinks that we need to concentrate on preventative medicine not destroying the current system. Please Tommy tell me what I need to do to prevent a cancer recurrence that doesn’t include having healthcare. Obviously his wife and daughter are not worried about having insurance now or in the future.

     Two days ago the media was saying that the President was willing to back off on the public option since that was what was riling up the Rabid Republicans. I have been hoping that in the future I would have that option since I have a pre-existing condition. I immediately sent an email to President Obama asking that the public option be something that he fights for. It is the most important part of reform to me any one who can be denied coverage. I told him that I had worked my whole life and now at fifty-one have no job and no healthcare. The next day the president’s office said that reports that they were backing off on the public option were wrong. Coincidence? I think not.

     Astra Zeneca has a program to provide its prescription medication to the uninsured or low income for a year. Two weeks ago I tried to get a brand new prescription for Arimidex to mail into the program. It is an estrogen inhibitor that I must take for a minimum of five years since my tumor was estrogen positive. I couldn’t get anyone at the Tang Center at UC Berkeley to write a new prescription for me. One of the two women I had seen previously retired and the other was off for the summer so I saw Dr. Batten. He has no bedside manner and was so hurried when he walked in the room that the first thing I said to him was, “Are you in a hurry?” He is very young, around thirty and looked like he had just finished med school. He acted like I was wasting his time. He refused to write a new prescription since I would not be in his care after the fifteenth. Later I found out he is the doctor for the CAL football team and specialized in sports medicine. That explains a lot. There was a huge difference between him, who has possibly never lost a patient and all of the other doctors I’ve had in the past four years. 

     The very nice pharmacist at Tang Center Keith Dong gave me three months of Arimidex for one co-pay. Thank You.   Onward!