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Yes, but
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It's Hitting Me Now
[I haven't written anything essay-like since last year. Just posted this on dailykos yesterdaywww.dailykos.com/storyonly...ng-Me-Now]Like any good Kossack, I've been following the push for health care since I first came here in '05. I read all the health care nightmare stories, which sadly started to sound similar after a while. Someone gets sick, needs care, and can't get it for one reason or another, ensuing in a lot of hair pulling by me. Some of them move their lives forward as best they can, inspiring us with their courage and urging us to fight. Some of them don't make it.
Perhaps this is neither a story of courage nor defeat, but it's only hitting me now what good health care in this country might have done for my mother.
My mother died in 1997 at the age of 57. My family would feel ashamed if they knew what I was saying here, but she was kinda nutty. She had been divorced for several years, yet was working for her ex-husband's company. They'd had the classic alcoholic husband/co-dependent wife relationship during their 25 year marriage. He was not my father. My grandmother and her husband adopted me when I was an infant; they were my Mom and Dad.
Our relationship was at the same time intense and distant. The year she died I had only spoken to her a couple of times. I hadn't seen her since the year before. One time, a few months before she died, she said she was sick with bronchitis, and then broke down crying that she would come to see us, she promised! I attributed her hysteria to her nature, which had always been dramatic, not to her illness.
We found out a week before she died. She was in the hospital and the doctor on the phone said, "She has a tumor in her tummy," as if I were a child. We flew down to San Diego from San Francisco and found out she really had stomach cancer and she would die within a few days. I will never forget that moment. I was 34 years old and looked up at my grandmother, who was in her late 70s and realized I would be completely alone in the world very soon. We brought hospice in immediately and took her to her home where she died a few days later.
I spent 4 months after that living in her home, processing our difficult relationship but also trying to find out what the hell happened. Her ex-husband had said that she would have had insurance, but she never filled out the forms. I would have pursued that further but to what end? Knowing my mother's martyr tendencies, I thought it was plausible.
I looked through her papers and discovered that she had paid cash to see doctors and the ER a few times, and had had chest x-rays which I'm sure, given her story of "bronchitis" months earlier would have shown metastases. Why didn't she have further tests and treatment? Probably because she didn't have insurance.
Today, after reading nyceve's diary, it finally hit me. I always thought that I didn't have a health care story. My mother was not a strong advocate for herself. I cannot say 100% that my mother would have gotten treatment earlier if she'd had health insurance. Stomach cancer is hard to treat even with early detection.
But even though my mother was a bit emotionally unbalanced, what would have happened if she'd had insurance no matter what?
It's possible she wouldn't have accepted treatment anyway, but perhaps she would have felt cared for, "held" in a way that she didn't back then. Perhaps health care workers (I'm not blaming them here) would have been slightly more encouraging-- I imagine someone gently leading her by the elbow to be admitted when she was in the ER, instead of what really happened--her leaving with a prescription for an inhaler. Perhaps she would have felt comfortable telling us she was gravely ill and not worry that her treatment would bankrupt her whole family.
Perhaps, perhaps, she'd be alive today.
I'm in the Chronicle
OK, well barely. With a beer bottle in front of my face. And my friend Venus looking away beside me. "He said Asians!" she said to me during Obama's speech.
Me an' the Junk
There's a replica of a Chinese Junk in SF right now at the Hyde St. Pier. I went to see it on the supposedly last day, Friday. They were eating lunch, so I asked if I could just take pictures and they agreed. As they were finishing up lunch I spoke with the skipper, Nelson, whose project this is. It took him 6 years of research and work to get the boat built. It has no nails and no synthetic glue.I heard my teacher's voice saying, "Make a donation or offering." I asked, and they accepted. Then they invited me to have some of their lunch! People were taking pictures like I was part of the crew.
I spoke to Nelson about how important his work is, how disconnected we are here in America and it seemed to really resonate with him. They're sailing next to Hawaii and then back to Taiwan. (It took them 69 days to cross the Pacific.) They don't actually have a place to dock in Hawaii yet, so I called my teacher on Maui immediately and she was so excited. She happens to be married to one of the premier Hawaiian woodworkers, and he's just started teaching how to build canoes again. I'm hoping we can arrange for them to dock at Maui and we can do a traditional welcoming ceremony for them.
They aren't leaving til Thursday or Friday due to the weather and they're still provisioning. Today I brought them some oranges. They're a traditional offering, but I also thought, "Scurvy!"
Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator
What would you be named if Sarah was your mom--her other kids are named Trig, Track, Willow, Bristol, and Piper.politsk.blogspot.com/2008/09..._13.html
I'd be Roller Texas Palin.
Gook: McCain's Racism
Just finished my new video:au.youtube.com/watch
I met up with Irwin Tang, author of Gook: John McCain's Racism and Why It Matters, at the Netroots Nation conference and found myself volunteering to work together when he spoke about his research into McCain's use of the word Gook and then going deeper into his racist background. And believe me, John McCain is white supremacist racist.
Irwin says that people of color never fail to have a visceral reaction when they find out about this and this was true of me. I know it may not convince anyone not to vote for McCain, but I think it may be a strong motivator to people who were thinking of not voting at all to vote against McCain.
I'm dedicating my time through the election to making more videos like this. Thanks for looking and pass it around, especially to people of color!
Heidi
The Olympics: China Will Be Teased
The Olympics start in week, and I keep thinking about the ways in which China will succeed and fail. The International press will not be respectful, in fact they already aren't. I think China will fail in ways for which they haven't the faintest inkling and won't understand, even in hindsight. The Chinese leadership will be both arrogant and ignorant.They will also succeed spectacularly in their earnestness and helpfulness and through the force of sheer numbers of proud, willing people. I hope the press gets that.
When I visited, it often went like this. I'd ask for something at the front desk of a hotel. They wouldn't respond. No "I'll be right back" or "Of course I can help you with that." They would disappear. Just when the discomfort got to be so great I'd want to start pounding the desk, they'd come back and the issue would have been taken care of in a way more gracious and deep than I ever imagined.
I'm a total Olympics fan, and wouldn't you know it my TV has gone on the blink! I think it's time to upgrade.
Magic Man
Magic Man by Heart. How did they know, so long ago? The spell has been broken, though.Cold late night so long ago
When I was not so strong you know
A pretty man came to me
Never seen eyes so blue
You know I could not run away
It seemed we'd seen each other in a dream
It seemed like he knew me
He looked right through me, yeah
"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"You don't have to love me and
Let's get high awhile
But try to understand
Try to understand
Try try try to understand
I'm a magic man."
Winter nights we sang in tune
Played inside the months of moon
Never think of never
Let this spell last forever
Summer lover passed to fall
Tried to realize it all
Mama says she's worried
Growing up in a hurry, yeah
"Come on home, girl" mama cried on the phone
"Too soon to lose my baby and my girl should be at home!"
"But try to understand, try to understand
Try try try to understand
He's a magic man, mama, ah ...
He's a magic man"
"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"I cast my spell of love on you, a woman from a child!
But try to understand, try to understand, oh ... oh ...
Try to understand
Try try try to understand
He's a magic man!" oh yeah
Oh, you've got the magic hands
"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"You don't have to love me and
Let's get high awhile
But try to understand
Try to understand
Try try try to understand
He's a magic man." yeah ... oh ...
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