Anger Saves Cancer Patients 100% more than Accepting the Unacceptable

Facebook memories is hated every summer. But, it is what it was.

The other day in a comment section someone said: you seem awfully angry that the treatment the doctors prescribed worked.

And there’s nothing special about this other than the power of generalization. It is of course assumed that my treatment plan was given to me by my doctors. But that’s not the truth, of course, which would be that I ordered it, begged for it, had a god damn tantrum to get it.

Which, if you’ve ever really truly been dying and heard someone say “no” to the thing you absolutely believe will save your life — because they think it will give you hope? Be too hard on you? Because it’s much easier to sit and wait around for a death you don’t just think is coming, anyone can see it screaming towards you so fast it devastates your ability to process.

And so, my admitted anger issues don’t stem from Keytruda working. Some are from the sheer luck I had in wearing my doctor down. Was it because she was a woman? Would a man not have caved to my pleas?

But that conversation is why I never want oncology to become socialized medicine. I’ve lost so many people who tried to get back in, to get the Hail Mary. It is refused. They are dismissed. It’s not their dime. The greater good, and all that.

So that’s the only reason. Oncology “rules” are ruthless. To not be able to pay to play, to be frank, kills a lot of patients.

The other assumption is that my cancer case was like anyone else’s. But the main artery of my anger comes from the fact that at 46, I was diagnosed with cancer and every day after that I got worse. In a month I couldn’t reach my bedroom because there were stairs. In two months I couldn’t reach only walk to the bathroom, in short jerky spurts. That’s not normal.

The tumor in my trachea was destroying me so fast I had to hold on.

And so when I read about then, now? I’m so damn proud that I navigated the tragedy with humor and fight. I’m nervous every day that people are dying from neglect, from ignorance, or from straight apathy.

The government plays in our healthcare like it’s a litter box for them to shit in, and nearly cover up. And frankly, 95% of the healthcare system sucks. America is falling behind several other countries in cancer, to become a sort of joke.

Because although we’re pumping out new meds left, right, and center they are all to make life better longer with cancer.

Other countries are working diligently at curing cancer. Because there, maybe, it’s still allowed.

I can fully remember being told along with turning stage 4, that I was not “allowed” to be treated to cure anymore.

Not… allowed?

Because, they said, metastatic cancer cannot be cured so it is unlawful and unethical for us to try.

So if people don’t understand why I’m angry, most of it has to do with the fact that I pushed against stupid and proved every single thing-I repeat every single thing I had been told was bullshit.

And so no, I don’t give my doctors credit for this life. I credit them with my near death. I keep chanting my story, hoping to catch the eye or the ear of someone who picks up on something that now or later they could use to help themselves or someone else.

Because I get it, I’m not a trusted news source. What I’m saying is that I would be strategically careful about how much trust to put there. Because for 5.5 years I’ve said my cancer is cured. And each year there’s a little less pushback. There’s in the works right now the re-categorization of stage 4 patients-those whose disease is controlled by medication will be weeded out from those whose cancer isn’t.

That does nothing for me, as I haven’t been on medication in years.

Just like being 5 years cancer free didn’t change anything.

Because if I’m declared cancer-free as if I were any other stage but 4… so much would change. And it’s all financial.

It’s all political, and it always was. Always. As I was told in the icu, dying - it costs too much to save the stage 4’s.

No. My cancer case wasn’t normal because I started day one 75 pounds and and invalid and hit rock bottom and shot out cancer free and it was all only 6 months total. 3 months going to hell, 6 weeks getting out and 6 weeks of being dazed as to what the hell just happened.

I think most people would be as angry as I am if they saw the things I did. Because although I’m obviously happy Keytruda worked for me and I got better, that comes with also being aware:

I could have been “allowed” to have it in day one, and avoided the pain, agony and humiliation of becoming a 60 pound invalid.

But I wasn’t allowed. You had to be stage 3b to get keytruda then. B! B!!!!

Fuck me for being 3A. That was politics. Money. Then, when I was stage 4, I wasn’t “allowed” to have it because I was hospitalized. Insurance will cover chemotherapy in hospital rooms, but not immunotherapy. Politics. Money.

Aside from my allowances, the other thing that truly angers me is just how easy it was to get well. It was ridiculously easy to get rid of the cancer. Loads of cancer, a dozen tumors. Poof. But they swore there was nothing else to be done. Nothing could save me. Only thing left was a peaceful death.

And this me that’s still rages thinking ‘fuck YOU’ to those doctors, is who saved my life. Because I was determined to show them they were wrong.

So yeah, I’m angry because - really. How many childish, petty, unmanageable people out there could there be? And how the hell am I supposed to save all the well-behaved people who have respect for rules and authority.

But no. I’ll never say I don’t have anger issues, but I will want it to be correctly stated. I’m gloriously ok with immunotherapy. I believe none of my doctors ever even once tried to save my life, by which I conclude by the same math they have quite a pile-up of bodies in their wake that could have lived if only those doctors had cared enough.

People think it’s crazy when I say that survival rates in oncology would skyrocket if doctors were financially rewarded and subsequently penalized yearly for patient survivals and losses. The idea being - doctors can’t control who lives and dies.

And if you believe that, I wrote a book for you.

But if you are salaried in at a half million a year no matter what, we are relying on your high moral standing to save people. That’s not good enough for me. Make each patient worth $20,000. Worth doubled if they are cured, loss doubled if they are lost. Who’s going to work harder? Who might even stay past 5 researching the new drugs, looking for some way to help?

It’s a purposefully barbaric way to boil things down, but I paid an icu 2 million dollars, that refused for a week to let me leave for hospice. I don’t think many professional patients like I was aren’t aware of their worth, and subsequent lack of value.

Problem is people have to stop trying to make it nice, and pretending that’s not how it is.

I mean. Ok, anger issues.

- my insurance wouldn’t cover portable oxygen because they said ‘there was nowhere I needed to go.’

Um. To TREATMENT? I used my mom’s portable oxygen machine until I got better to go to get Keytruda.

-my insurance only covered physical therapy to the point where I was able to stand and pivot. That, is the gold standard.

All I needed in life at 46 was to be able to get out of a hospital bed and turn to sit on a toilet that somehow was right by my bed? I didn’t need to walk.

Because -and this is true - I could live without it. If I could get on to a toilet, there was no need for home care.

Political. Financial. Decisions.

I suggest you start getting angry and raising hell, because 4 more years of this political arena and it will make the fantastic rules of 6 years ago look like a dream.