Oh, BTW . . .

August 26, 2008 | Filed Under mouth, speech therapy | No Comments

I did consult with a speech therapist last week. End result was about what I expected, but not what I was hoping for. According to the speech therapist, no amount of therapy will help me. My speech, while not completely unintelligible — if I talk slowly and at a decent volume, is as good as it will ever get. The damage to my tongue is severe enough as to make speech therapy useless. I lost about 20-25% of my tongue mass on the right-side — not to mention the scar tissue. Oh well . . . you win some, you lose some.

If Health Care isn’t a Right, It Should Be

August 24, 2008 | Filed Under health, medicaid | 1 Comment

About a month or so ago, I read this interesting post on Commercialappeal.com about our health care system and comparing it to other developed nations. I was fascinating to me how many comments blasted the very idea of socialized medicine and the notion that access to health care should be a right.

From my own perspective, I can’t say that government-controlled health care is perfect — certainly there are negative aspects to socialized medicine. I’ve been on Medicaid for a little over a year now and I’m not crazy about all the extra paperwork and having someone I don’t know decide for me what kinds of health care I’m entitled to and when I can have access to it. On the other hand, without it, I would’ve died. That’s right. I only had about a 20-25% chance of beating cancer with treatment, but at least I had a chance. Without access to those treatments I would have died for sure.

So, I can only think of two kinds of idiots who’d say that health care isn’t a basic human right: people who can afford health insurance (and don’t much care about the people who don’t have health insurance) and people who’ve never been sick enough to really need it. To those with private health insurance, I’d tell you that I once had private health insurance, too — that is, until I lost it. To the people who’ve never been seriously ill — just wait, because you’re day is coming.

I’m not saying that socialized medicine is the whole answer, but we need to stop thinking of health care as some commodity to be traded on the free market. We need to stop using human lives as bargaining chips and start putting people first. Until our political and business leaders start doing that, this problem will only get worse.

This is the Biggest Load of Shit I’ve Ever Heard!

August 7, 2008 | Filed Under cancer | No Comments

This sounds like junk science to me:

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