Assisted Death

Last night we were watching some episodes from the season 3 DVD of Dexter – one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen.  Check it out sometime.

Anyway.  A character in the tv show is dying of lung cancer.  It’s terminal.  There’s no way to treat or cure the cancer at this point.  Dexter has known this lady for many years and visits her in the hospice care center a few times.

One day he goes in, and she’s in a terrible mood.  Why?  Because the doctor told her that her tumor was actually slowing down it’s growth rate.  Meaning she probably had another month to live, instead of another week.  She began to cry and choke, completely torn up over the fact that she now had to endure the pain, the difficult breathing, the vomiting, and, as she put it, s**tting all over herself at night, for another month.  She just wants to die and be done with it.  She’s ready to go.  Her husband had died a year or two before, and she was simply ready to join him.  And, in the end, she begs Dexter to help her die.  To pull the plug.  Smother her.  Anything to make it all be over with.

If I’m ever in her shoes, will I feel the same way?  I’ve never had to endure prolonged and terminal pain, so I can’t say for sure.  But it really made me start thinking about assisted death and, apart from religious or spiritual views on the matter, whether there was a place for it in the world of health care.  Sure, guidelines and legal protocols would likely be a mile long.  Lawsuits would run rampant.  But might there be a place for it, really?  Would it be ALL that different from the do-not-recessitate laws that are already used?  Was Jack Kavorkian on to something?

Crap, I don’t know.  I feel sort of sacreligous for even thinking it.  At the same time, it seems right, almost kind and merciful in many situations.  To allow a person who’s scientific hope for physical relief has reached its end the personal option to end their suffering.  My head is sort of spinning on this one.  I’ll need to think it through.  Thoughts?

Health Care

I am completely torn on the health care debate.  Over a year ago, after watching the movie “Sicko”, it was clear to me that health care for all was the only clear path for a moral nation.  How could you allow people to be sick, to live with disease, or to die.  And, maybe even worse, how could you stand to send millions of people into financial shambles if they are forced to have problems or injuries treated with no health coverage.

Here’s the thing.  I haven’t changed my stance on health care.  I still think it should be provided to all, somehow, someway.

It’s the “somehow, someway” that I’m torn over.  I understand capitalism and economics enough to know that free health care isn’t the answer.  But how do you federally regulate the system so that it’s fair to everyone.

Sure, we could regulate the cost of all procedures down to the bare minimum.  But don’t hospitals, insurers, and doctors have at least some right to earn a good living?  Sometimes I think it’s criminal for a doctor or surgeon to make $500,000 to $1,000,000 per year, knowing that money comes from inflated insurance costs and expensive procedures that most people just could never afford, but are forced to undergo just to live.  At the same time, I think, “well, that doctor or surgeon went to school and worked his or her ass for about 10-12 years to learn how to heal the human body, so they should be entitled to make that kind of money.”  You get my dilemma?

Both fortunately and unfortunately, long gone are the days of the town doctor that shows up to your house with a little satchel and does what he can to help and might accept a side of beef for payment.  Fortunately, because today people don’t have to battle illness on their own.  They don’t have to automatically assume that the flu might take their life.  They don’t have to have their broken bones set by a family member and then braced with a couple of pieces of wood and some string.  We have a plethora of doctors, clinics, and hospitals.  We have prescription medicines that help us breathe better, sleep better, hurt less, fight off bugs, regulate our blood, and battle fevers.  We have procedures for all types of injuries and problems that have been studied, practiced, revised, improved, and repracticed over the years, such that procedures that may have been impossible 100 years ago are now common and routine.

But, unfortunately, because all of this comes at a price.  We feel we have a right to be treated immediately and effectively for our respiration problem, but forget that the machine that just x-rayed our chest cost about $350,000, and someone has to pay for it.  We sue surgeons and hospitals for any procedure that doesn’t go quite right, and they in turn charge that much more for the service because of their rising insurance costs.  We eat fast food, drink sugar, and barely exercise, yet wonder why in the world we keep getting sick 3 – 5 times a year, and why our joints hurt so much when we turn 40, and why we’re so sluggish all the time, in need of more coffee or Coke.  We can’t believe the hospitals would charge $20,000 for a simple surgery, yet we forget that the surgeon studied for many many years, and probably deserves to be very well paid, considering that his/her job is to help people live longer.

So, now, I no longer really know where I stand.  Free health care, but at who’s expense?  Subsidized health care?  But again, at who’s expense?  Can, we, as a nation, adjust to longer waits and only-as-truly-needed procedures?  Are we capable of taking some responsibility for our personal health habits?  Is it any more fair to federally mandate the cost of a surgery than it would be to federally mandate the price of a large pizza?

Yes, the health care industry needs to be held more accountable.  They need to be consistent.  They need to be more open.  It should be far less difficult to find out how much something costs, and why.  It should not be common practice to charge two different patients two different costs for the same procedure.  These types of things make me sick.  But I know these things happen in other industries as well.  The only difference is that the other industries aren’t necessarily enlongating my life, or the life of my friends or family.  So I just don’t care quite as much.

I don’t know the answer.  I only hope there is one.  Because any nation, whether Christian or Muslim, wealthy or third world, should truly and actively care about the physical well being of its citizens.  To me, that is the one unshakable fundamental to this debate.

Some Things That I’m Truly Afraid Of

Almost anything to do with going to the doctor….needles, having blood drawn, shots, the phrase “this shouldn’t hurt too much”, the smell, the other sick people in the waiting room, the bad news, the bill, the $50.00 prescription.

Something bad happening in our home while we sleep.  Intruder…fire…leaving the oven turned on…carbon monoxide poisoning, infestation of bugs.  This stuff often keeps me awake.  I hear noises coming from downstairs and lay awake for 10 minutes listening intently for more noise.  I keep a golf club under the bed.  About once every 2-3 weeks I get up and go downstairs (heart pounding) looking for what might be down there.  Some nights I check on Eli about 5 times before I can go to sleep. 

Really deep water.  I’m not sure how well I would handle a cruise or deep sea fishing.  The thought of floating on water that is 1000’s of feet deep really disturbes me…..even more so than the thought of an overweight, chain smoking clown hiding in my refrigerator, which is apparently a common fear.  I’m an okay swimmer, not great.  But the thought of going under, and it becoming pitch dark and cold….aahhadrdradlaadlfkj, it gives me chills.

Missing out on life.  Not too terribly afraid of death…it’s more the missing out on life that scares me.  Watching my son grow up.  Seeing new technological advances come to fruition.  Growing old with family and friends, reminiscing.  Enjoying sunshine.  Things like that.

Pain.  (see going to the doctor, above)  During one 18 month stretch of my childhood, I broke my left arm on 3 different occasion.  Three different breaks.  Three trips to the doctor/hospital.  Three times having my bones reset, which is still the worst pain I’ve experienced in my life.  Three times overreacting and wishing I would just die so I didn’t have to deal with the pain again.  The result of this experience is that I’m somewhat pain-o-phobic.  I will gladly avoid engaging in activities (flag football, excercising, getting up from the couch, cooking dinner) that could result in serious pain. 

Topic #6 – Going to the Doctor

I’ve been sick the last two days. So has Eli. On Monday afternoon, we both went to the doctor. He had thrown up a couple of times but she said just to monitor him and be careful what he eats for a couple of days. I had a horribly sore throat, no strep, and was given an anti-biotic prescription.

I also went to the doctor last Friday. I wasn’t sick, but I’ve had a dry cough now for about 4-6 weeks that hasn’t gone away, and am getting tired of it. My wife works for an ear, nose, and throat group, so I was able to visit with no co-pay out of pocket.

The two doctor visits, and a prescription for my cough and one for my sore throat cost a total of $85.00. To be honest, there’s hardly ever a time when we can afford a sudden loss of $85.00. So not only have I been sick, but very frustrated as well. Not to mention the doctor on Friday ran a flexible scope up my nose, down my naval passage, and into my chest. Not enjoyable.

I’ve been to the doctor a total of 3 times this year. Before April, it had been probably almost 3 years since my last doctor visit. I hate going. Not because I don’t trust them. But because I hate getting a cold, paying $20.00 to see the doctor, then paying another $20.00-$40.00 for some medicine, only for the cold or flu to take as long to go away as it normally would. I can understand going when you’re REALLY sick or injured in a way that you can’t possibly care for yourself. But how many people go at the drop of a dime? Everytime they feel something? Everytime they get a cold? Everytime they have nausea? It’s been said that this is part of the extremely high cost of healthcare….the fact that people who have free or low cost healthcare grossly overuse it.

Sorry, I guess I’m just venting a little. Feeling mostly better now, both physically and emotionally. Throat still a little sore, and the cough is not gone. I’m very grateful for doctors. It’s hard to understand how hard they work to get to where they are. They do incredibly important things daily to help people stay alive and healthy. And although I DO believe that God can heal people even today, I’m not really one who shuns doctors as a way to fortify my faith in the healing power of God.

I just don’t like going to see them….could just be that I really hate needles?

Sicko – An Angry Review

Last Friday night my wife and I saw the movie Sicko, by filmmaker Michael Moore. I really did not know what to expect from this movie. I only know that I really enjoyed Bowling for Columbine and Farenheit 9/11, and was willing to see whatever new movie he released. In fact, from the billboards and the title, I really thought this movie would be another “Bush Bashing” or “Administration Bashing” type of movie.

I was surprised to see it really focuses on an incredibly important issue…healthcare. The movie is not about Republicans or Democrats, nor does it delve deeply into who’s to blame for our nation’s healthcare debacle. It simply makes a very strong point…many other countries in our world provide FREE, universal healthcare to ALL of it’s citizens. Why can’t we?

I don’t care if you personally don’t like Michael Moore. This is one documentary you need to see. It’s gotten consistently strong reviews as a movie. You can check out this one from Rolling Stone magazine, or this one from EOnline, or this one from the Boston Globe. What you’ll find in most reviews are people saying this is probably Moore’s best overall movie to date. He tones down the political rhetoric and really focuses on the issue at hand. Sure, he over-emotionalizes a little, and stretches a point or two a little to far. But the movie is funny, maddening, serious, emotional, and somtimes truly unbelievable.

Here’s the hard part. The movie really, really has got me ticked off. I don’t want to give up too much subject matter, because you need to see it for yourself. But here’s the kicker: Canada – FREE healthcare for everyone. Great Britain – FREE healthcare for everyone. France – FREE healthcare for everyone. Cuba – FREE healthcare for everyone. Moore shatters some preconceived notions that Americans have about the universal systems. “Doctor’s make little money in universal healthcare” (wrong). “The quality of care is just not as good” (wrong). “You have to wait forever to get anything taken care of” (wrong).

In probably the most talked about part of the movie, Moore actually takes a group of sick Americans – some of whom are suffering because of their involvement in the 9/11 clean up and rescue missions – to Cuba. While there, these people receive totally free healthcare services and free prescription medications. One women breaks down crying when she receives several boxes of a respiratory medicine for free….the same medicine she has to pay $100’s of dollars for in America.

So why am I ticked off? (I hope no one from some secret government search engine reads this) I’m ticked off because this movie has really added to my dislike of the country in which I live. I’ve begun to wonder (and not only because of Sicko) whether America is really the nation in which we are expected to believe it is. It’s the “land of the free”, but there are many free industrialized nations in our world now. Is America really that much better of a place to live than Canada, England, France, Italy, or Australia? Would it not be a stetch to say that in many industrialized nations, people probably actually have MORE freedoms than we do?

Capitalism used to be a term that would invoke pride in Americans. We all have the opportunity to do well in life because of the opportunities capitalism provides. But isn’t capitalism now polarizing and in some ways destroying our nation? Every year, the majority of Americans who declare bankruptcy do so because they cannot pay their medical bills.

In Sicko, Moore goes to a pharmacy in Great Britain. In Great Britain, at every pharmacy, no matter what medicine you purchase, it costs 6 pounds, or roughly $10.00. ANY medicine. Doesn’t matter if it’s 30 pills or 90 pills, ibuprofen, viagra, or amoxicillin, the prescription costs $10.00. A heart medicine that would cost a senior citizen $200.00 to buy here….$10.00 there. How’s that for capitalism? Here’s a country we consider to be an ally, possibly even a contemporary. And if you live there, you pay NO medicals costs (ever), and any prescription you need costs $10.00. Here, hundreds of thousands of people go bankrupt each year because of these same needs.

As you can see, I’m mad. I often joke with my wife about moving to Canada. I’m always half-joking and half-serious. Of course, it would be difficult to do, since ALL of our family are in the Kentucky/Tennessee area, and we would have no jobs lined up. But there are so many times when I wish we had the courage to just do it. It seems to me that America has devolved into a place controlled by egotistical power, political polarization, greed, money, fear, endless laws, and even manipulative suppression. It’s where I live. I’m pretty confident it’s where I’ll always live. But it’s become almost impossible for me to take pride in that fact, and Sicko is just a small part of it.