Tuesday, April 9, 2013

My sister the Ambassador For Life

August Initially was my grandmother’s birthday. She would have already been 84, but she died in 1995, of lung cancer. I buried her husband this previous January. He also died of lung cancer. And its has been three years due to the fact among my sisters got her initial diagnosis of - yep, lung cancer. She’s been by means of surgery, radiation, chemo and remission, followed by systemic metastasis that resulted in a terminal “you’ve got weeks to live” diagnosis.

But she’s nevertheless here. Been through a different round of full round of chemo, just had a chest X-ray. There's a shadow. If her cancer is on the develop once again, properly, that is it. She’s had the maximum dosage of radiation and chemo. Her bones are so brittle she’s broken a half dozen ribs given that the very first from the year. Her digestive program can’t tolerate meat or glutens any longer. But she keeps going. She lives every single day like tomorrow does not matter. Does 500 push ups and 1000 crunches every single day. She’s one of my heroes. She’s been named among the American Cancer Society‘s “Relay for Life” ambassadors, and will be speaking at a fundraiser this month.

She’s also unemployable and uninsured except for Healthcare. If she’d had insurance coverage, her lung cancer most likely would happen to be caught long ahead of it reached Stage IV. So within a large amount of ways, she’s not only an ambassador for the American Cancer Society, she’s also a poster-child for the want for very affordable and preventive health care.

I thought this country had grown up a bit, outgrown the fear-mongering and stepped as much as hope and function for the future. As well as the way some Americans are acting lately, properly, it shames us all. It really is reprehensible to play on people’s fears. It truly is shameful to lie to them. But even worse may be the pervasive laziness and ignorance. Americans are complacent. We’ve turn into cattle at the trough, internalizing what ever the media sends by means of, no matter how outrageous.

That is democracy and freedom of information and facts at work. And we feel the rest of the globe ought to emulate us?! Americans have develop into so lazy, so bloated with information, that they don't look at what they consume. All important considering capabilities appear to have been drowned in high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oil, not to mention pundits and talk show hosts.

I know this can be extremely un-sexy. I know you almost certainly read my blog seeking an escape from reality to sensuality. And I attempt to stick to my motto of giving voice to the sensual immediacy of life, I really do, only in some cases, in some cases the words stick in my throat and I think of the poet Shane Koyczan saying that he doesn’t maintain alter in his pocket he keeps it in the tip of his pen, because at times the writing on the wall can use a little revision.

And I contemplate my sister, who is dying by the millimeter, cancer cell by cancer cell, and how she nonetheless finds the power to be an Ambassador For Life, and if a lady for whom every single breath can be a painful reminder of 80 year old ribs inside a 40 year old body has the willpower to run a Relay for Life what the FUCK am I doing writing about frottage and orgasms and soft sheets? Does writing about the sensual immediacy of life come close towards the level of advocacy she and each and every particular person on this planet requires in regards to wellness care?

Come on people today, let go of the fears. I know you're afraid, we all are. However the difference in between the man who killed Martin Luther King along with the man who walked around the moon is the man who walked around the moon put his fears with the vaccum of space aside, and took that giant leap for mankind. Plus the difference amongst the mobs at the townhall meetings and the thousands who run in the Relay For Life is a recognition that ignorance and worry kill much more men and women than cancer does. Massive Business enterprise interests are obtaining your fears. Your pharmacy purchases, your health-related premiums - your funds is going toward the millions of dollars every day getting spent on misinformation campaigns which can be creating the desired outcome of paralyzing men and women with fear so the bottom-line keeps developing at double-digit prices.

Don’t let the dying put us to shame. You, also, is usually an ambassador for life. Go look for the details as an alternative to swallowing the inflammatory swill the media outlets are calling “news” and speak the truth for the ignorant. Or 1 day you, too, just may uncover yourself with insufficient wellness insurance coverage and also a strong need for health care, seeking back and thinking “if only that insurance reform had gone by means of back in ’09. Then possibly a routine pap smear would have caught my cancer and I could have observed my daughter graduate from high college.”

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