I had a revelation. Over the years I've always said that each of us has their own hardships to deal with but somewhere in the back of my mind I didn't quite believe that the heartaches of others were quite as heart-achey as mine. A son with duchenne dystrophy is, after all, an overwhelming and constant loss. And while my opinion had shifted during these past few years, I still held on to a piece of it.
That changed.
This Christmas at one gathering, almost everyone was dealing with a tragedy or tragedy in the making. One person with ALS was trying to decide whether or not to get a tracheostomy because he would soon not be able to breath on his own. One woman, younger than me, had been dealing with diabetes for years, undergone amputations, and was now living in a nursing home. Someone else was in constant pain from a back problem. Each family had its own problem. It's a good perspective on life.
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Today I was back at work.
I returned my son's 24 hour heart monitor to cardiology. While I was there I passed the chapel and decided to stop in. As the world whirled away outside the door, I sat in silence, reading a self-guided Christmas service left behind amid the Koran, the Old Testament and a Hindu text of some sort. It was soul breathing, kind of like bringing the peace of Christmas back to work with me.
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Today, Children's held a Health Care Community Discussion in response to a request from the Obama Transition Team. My contribution was about the cost of health care and coordination of services. There were other suggestions and two stick out:
- modeling the country's health care plan on the Oregon Health Plan, which covers everyone who lives there and
- imposing a penalty on insurance companies who deny a service that is later found to be covered.
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