That’s right folks, two blog posts in one day. I hadn’t planned on writing this one, but a lot went on today and it has gotten me in the mood to spill my guts. So after lunch I got back to my office and not soon after my phone rang; on the other end was my little sister with some big news. The first bit of knowledge she dropped on me was with regards to my uncle Dave.
A little background, my uncle is a veteran and receives health insurance through his veteran’s benefits. In order to see a doctor he has to travel all the way up to Wilkes-Barre, PA to receive treatment. Well, apparently a couple years ago he went to the doctor for some blood work and the doctor came back with some scary news: he had cancer. The problem was the doctor didn’t know where in his body it was. They ran some tests, but were unable to determine where the cancer originated from, so the doctors sent him home.
It’s been two years since that initial visit (of which the rest of the family is only learning of now) and the news isn’t good. According to the doctors, my uncle has in inoperable tumor in his abdomen. To make matters worse, my uncle told my little sister that if it comes down to it, he doesn’t want chemo. He has seen what it does to the human body and just doesn’t want to go through all that if it only has a slight chance of working. That said, we still don’t have all the test results so we will have to wait and see how big the tumor is before freaking out.
After dropping that bomb on me, my little sister had some other news regarding my big sister. Again, some background, my big sister has suffered from a seizure disorder since she was a teenager and it has certainly made her life difficult. Well about a week ago she had a seizure while standing at the top of the stairs at her boyfriend’s house. She fell down the stairs and broke her leg, but that’s not the bad part. The bad part happened at the hospital. Apparently, after receiving a routine cat scan to check for any head injuries, the doctors found a brain aneurysm. Now I don’t particularly get along well with my big sister, but when I heard this I almost cried right then and there in my office. If you don’t know anything about aneurysms (which I didn’t), the survival rate (even if you get them treated) isn’t good. To make matters worse, my sister is unemployed and without health insurance, so she has no way to get the treatment she needs. She’s applied for Medicaid because of her seizure disorder, but who knows if she’ll get it or how long it will take. The doctors weren’t much help either; they told her that they won’t provide “preemptive emergency care”, i.e. she can’t get treatment without insurance until the aneurysm ruptures. And in case you couldn’t guess, a ruptured aneurysm isn’t good.
All this news has me pretty shaken. I couldn’t eat my leftover cookies from lunch and I’m pretty sure I want to go get a physical as soon as possible. I’ve always been really healthy, except for my rather frequent headaches. I spent the afternoon at my desk thinking about my family’s medical history and it isn’t pretty:
Grandma on my Mom’s side: died of Cancer
Mom: suffered from Lupus; died from heart attack caused by heart aneurysm
Big Sister: seizure disorder; brain aneurysm
Little Sister: recently diagnosed with precancerous cells on her cervix
Half Sister: suffers from neurofibromatosis (seizures, etc.)
Uncle Dave: diagnosed with Cancer
All of this has got me thinking a lot about dying (my #1 fear) and how life is too short. I just hope I have the strength to live the life I want while I’ve got the chance. I don’t want to look back and wonder what if.
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