Baldies' Blog began originally in the UK by a 26 year old journalist with a blood cancer on a mission to inform the world about bone marrow donation.

He has since died, and I took on the cause of making cancer care more transparent for everybody.

Cancer is a disease that will touch everybody through diagnosis or affiliation: 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed and 1 in 3 woman will hear those words, "You Have Cancer."

I invite you to read how I feel along my journey and
how I am continuing to live a full life alongside my Hodgkin's lymphoma, with me controlling my cancer, not my cancer controlling me.

I hope that "Baldies' Blog" will prepare you to handle whatever life sends you, but especially if it's the message, "You Have Cancer."

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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Focus on The Living

No wonder my interest for writing is starting to wane.
I started writing to offer information and insight into the mind of someone with a life threatening cancer who also has to continue living.
I started because I believed in the genuine good of people and their ability to rise above pettiness when others are in need.
Unfortunately, even those who have suffered still get distracted and focus on the few rough spots in an arena that is genuinely trying to achieve good.
I have joined the health care reform debate because the current system is adversely affecting me and my family. The constant refusals of care and fighting with insurance company after pharmacy after hospital billing department can not be done alongside fighting cancer
Miss Anonymous
You are entitled to your opinions; however, your opinion won’t change the fact that abortion has been legal since the 1970s, and it has been federally funded through the social welfare system for years.
I don’t believe the Pitts-Stupak Amendment will be removed from legislation.
I, personally, agree with it.
That does not change that being pro-life in this instance means being anti-choice.
It is the same as insurance companies denying care by denying payment.
No one wants to go back to the era where a knitting needle was a teenager’s abortion. There is a definitive line between church and state. Whether this amendment is included in reform or not, I believe agencies that provide abortions will continue to be funded through the social welfare system.
Health Care and Social Welfare are two different pieces of a whole.
I, too, have studied how birth control and abortion talks relate to the health care system.
My very first experience was about 7.5 years ago when I started seeking an abortion for myself. I don’t think you are any more educated in the system than I am.
I can tell you that there is no feeling more desperate than knowing you are going to bring a child into this world with no means to care or feed it, not even being unable to breathe and know that you could be minutes away from dying.
I was lucky and relieved to have the ability to choose my route. During my pregnancy I had several friends who came to me with the secret they were pregnant. All had abortions. They all came from single mother, low income, inner city up bringing.
One of those women received her MBA. She bought her own home outside the projects.
Another went on to be a police officer in New York patrolling the streets of Harlem.
These women were able to be successful and happy in their own lives because they were given the choice not to have a child.
Taking away their ability to choose abortion takes away their ability to choose to rise above their upbringing.
And something tells me, though you oppose their decisions, you wouldn't be able to babysit so they could still accomplish their dreams of giving their children a better life than they had.
If you were available to assist, you would all ready be doing so, like my family does.
I was able to keep my child because I had a loving partner and supportive family.
The flip side, the alternate route I could have taken, would have been to have the child with no means of support, just like many of my friends.
I would have been given WIC, Section 8, and medical care, my child through healthy kids and I through Medicaid.
I would have been receiving tax payer support upon my diagnosis.
At that point, I not only would have been able to receive social security disability, but social security for my son, and social security income due to my lack of assets (anything under $4000).
This route would have had tax payers and hospitals footing the 2+ million dollar health care bill for my treatment.
There are many who choose to do this. In my experience, having the government assist in alleviating my health care bills through medicare has made my life easier and stress free.
I’m sure you are no more keen on supporting unwed mothers than you are on abortions.
I can only conjecture since you are remaining anonymous and telling nothing of yourself that your health care coverage must have been taken care of through your healthy husband or the state.
You must never have suffered the paralyzing fear of possibly having to stop treatment due to reaching insurance maximums.
You must never have worked through an extensive GI surgery for fear you would lose your job and insurance coverage.
You probably haven't woken up from a coma to immediately be greeted by a phone call from an insurance company dropping your coverage and charging $7000 to do it.
Otherwise, you would not be concerned with such pettiness.
You would be concerned that good people, even with insurance, do not have access to care in our current system, and that often, is a death sentence for them.
Please, in the future, focus on the living.
God in his infinite wisdom gave us all free will. It is not anybody’s place to judge our choices except his.
As Americans we must continue to allow and protect people’s freedom of choice, even if this means allowing others to make their own mistakes.
I’d prefer in the future that if anybody has an opinion they’d like to discuss that they identify themselves and remain civil.
And as for those 10 million who "may" lose their coverage in the future, there will be a safety net in place through a public option or government sponsored co-op that does not exist for the 46 million + working class poor that don't have coverage today.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, no one can say it like you girl. Nice job. I hope you keep blogging, even if it is just once in a while

Anonymous said...

Whoa---are people not allowed to disagree?

Anonymous said...

I guess when you put your opinions out on the internet, you should expect to receive mixed reviews, especially when it comes to politics. Not everyone is going to agree with you. It’s called free speech. You have a right to share your opinion, and I have the right to disagree. The interesting thing about “choice” is that the people who advocate for it, do so unless you “choose” not to agree with them. And those of us who don’t agree are hated because supposedly we are “haters.” In no way am I dmininishing all the work you've done to shed light on the extreme challenges and suffering of someone who is living with cancer. But when you use your disease to advocate for a political position, those of us who disagree with your position have a right to speak up.

To me, over 50 million dead babies and millions of wounded women isn't petty. Abortion is a lucrative industry and Planned Parenthood is reaping most of the benefits, particularly from our government. Last I checked, they were raking in over a billion dollars a year, 1/3 of which is government funding. Most of that income is from performing abortions and thanks to Obama, they're once again exporting these atrocities to third world countries.

They promote promiscuity through their school based sex "education" programs. They pump condoms and birth control pills into schools, free health clinics and anyone on else who will distribute them. Then when, oops, the birth control fails, they are there to convince women that the unborn child in her womb is "just a blob of tissue" and the best option to take care of the problem is abortion. They say abortion does them no harm.

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a eugenicist who had many close ties with the Nazi's. She believed that certain unwanted populations should be controlled…African Americans and other “socially undesirable people.” Abortion clinics were originally set up with the intention of slowing the population growth of these supposed socially undesirables and were located in predominately black, Hispanic or racially diverse neighborhoods. They were also strategically located near schools. Although their racist beginnings are swept under the carpet, the practice of racism alive and well in the abortion business. Why is it that African Americans are only approximately 12% of the population but have 35% of abortions? Why is it that abortion clinics are still predominately located in inner city neighborhoods? And Planned Parenthood is reaping all of the rewards and will only aquire more if Nancy Pelosi and her cronies have anything to do with it.
 
Instead of teaching young women about the high dignity their bodies and the beauty of their fertility, we say say here are some condoms or birth control pills and hope for the best.
Women's bodies are glorious creations and a child is the natural result of married love. Unfortunately Margaret Sanger and her minions have duped women into thinking that by freeing themselves to be the sex objects, through birth control, they are more free. Well I'm sorry but I know very intimately the wounds caused by abortion...depression, anxiety, feelings of guilt and self-hatred, not to mention the physical consequence of infertility for some. There are also numerous studies which show an increased chance of breast cancer. Not to mention the grief caused when you finally understand that you have ended the life of you own child...that the completely innocent life that was entrusted into your care was destroyed by your very own "choice." You gave some beautiful stories about a few women who had abortions and went on to lead wonderful lives. I can give you just and many stories of women's lives who were devastated by abortion. I can also give you just as many stories of women who had their children and went on to be successful or were generous enough to give the gift of life to a family who was overjoyed to welcome their child into their family. Abortion is never the best option.

Anonymous said...

Part II

I've had my share of battles with the insurance companies and like I already said, I agree that there is much reform needed. But the fact that I have health insurance, doesn't disqualify me from entering into the debate. If that were true, that most of the Senators and Representatives would certainly disqualify. In fact, why is it that the healtcare system they are proposing isn't good enought for them? I don't believe in socialism, which is what is being put on the table. Once the government has control of your health, they control you too. It errodes our freedom and personal responsibility. We become slaves of our own healthcare system. We already give 30% of our income to fund the government. The economy is in shambles and we're going to add 30 million more people into the public healthcare system. You don't think you're going to have to put up a fight when there's a panel in control of your care. Have you ever tried to get a government employee on the phone? Name one thing the government runs well and efficiently?

I for one do not want to finance the baby killing/woman hurting industry of abortion. No matter what amendment is included, each year there will be a battle to prevent abortion from being funded through the new public healthcare system. The abortion debate all boils down to, is what is inside the womb a human being or not? If not, at what point does it become a human being? For those of us who believe it is human, we continue to fight for them. Well, is it human?

Anonymous said...

Who anonymous. Yes of course you can disagree, however this is not a forum to raise awareness of your own views nor is it a website where you are invited to rant. I strongly suggest you find one of those to discuss your views on abortion. This is a blog written by a young woman who is very ill and is getting sicker as the years go by. Many of her readers also have cancer, some terminal, like myself. We would appreciate it if you wrote words of encouragement for Hillary's healthrather than words of division. We don't really care how you feel. This blog is not about YOU. It's about Hillary.