There couldn’t really be a better “happy birthday” message, than the one which tells you there are likely going to be more of them to come.
Thanks to Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Patty Murray and a whole host of about 300 other Democratic politicians (and the tens of millions of my fellow citizens who fought just as hard in the background) I have been insured for healthcare since January of 2014.
Considering that I was without any insurance since my divorce in 1997 until my coverage under the Expanded Medicaid provisions of the PPACA began, I’m very lucky to be here.
In fact, back on June 11th of 2011 I had a heart attack before the age of 50. When I was uninsured. I spent 3 days in agony before I decided to go to the hospital even if it might mean that I’d lose my house because of it — and good thing I did, because I had a massive, acute MI in the ER about five minutes after I arrived there. You can read the whole story here: Anti-GBCW
This past winter, I had some pain and when I saw my primary care doctor for my regular 3 month check-up, he sent me for some imaging studies. Turns out I now have diverticulitis in addition to the other medical issues I already have (Cardiac disease, type II diabetes). But that scan also found something anomalous. A small cyst on my left ovary.
Back in 2004-2006 I worked as contract labor to the Dept of Energy, at Bonneville Power Administration. I met this acerbic gal named Joanne, whom I got along with famously (because I, too, am a bit prickly in real life). We became good friends. Then I got transferred and didn’t see so much of her. Then I found out she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After she died, I found out that even though she had some of the best healthcare insurance available (as a federal employee) once she got her original diagnosis, she put off having treatment for six months. Which, it turns out, was a fatal mistake for Joanne.
But what I really learned during the loss of my friend, is that ovarian cancer can be one of the most aggressive cancers, growing and spreading at a atrociously fast pace.
So when I found out about the cyst I thought nothing of it. Until the next week, when I got a call from a Kaiser ObGyn specialist, who wanted to discuss with me a monitoring plan for this (news to me!) possible cancer. Here I thought I just has a small growth, now I was faced with the idea that this small cyst might actually be a cancerous tumor. It was not an idea which I was ready to think about, much less discuss with others. So I didn’t tell anyone for a while.
Fast forward to August 2017 and I have my regular ultrasound to check that little bugger… and the next day I get a call from the ObGyn to come asap for another tumor marker test, because that cyst which had been stable all of these months had grown suddenly. That was last week.
Just after midnight I signed onto www.kp.org and saw that I had a new message, titled “CA-125 test” and let me tell you — it took a couple of minutes of just sitting there before I was able to make myself CLICK that link and open the full message….
To read that my test had been the same as the previous test, “normal”.
So now it’s wait a few weeks for the Gyno-Oncologist to read over my results and help decide what ‘next steps’ look like.
But mostly, it’s likely that there are more ‘next steps’ in my future.
I’ve never had a better birthday present. Ever.
To help me celebrate?
Please send a donation of any size to any one of these Orgs/Candidates and tell the people in your life how much they mean to you TODAY and every day:
Democrats Work for America.org (SuperPAC of, by and FOR grassroots action)
Peter Harrison for Congress WA03 (my district)
Randy Bryce for Congress WI01 (my dad’s whole family is from Wisconsin)
and, because YouTube has them, here’s a bit of Happy Birthday Angie wishes from… a cat???
x xYouTube Video