Getting booted out after a double mastectomy is horrifying. I'm in Germany: after a lumpectomy I was required to remain in the hospital for over a week. I think it was ten days. I was ready to go home; they said "No, you rest."
Boot out POTUS and bring in Bernie.
http://www.thecriticalmom.blogspot.com
58
Writing about one's cancer is paradoxical. The awfulness of it, the pain, the despair, the nearness of death—these profound things become, to the writer, material. Professional writers are a fortunate few because of that. The idea, often true, that what they write will help others, thereby giving their own lives meaning, gives them a buffer from the random cruelty of their disease the rest of us face alone. Sontag's not using "I" and "cancer," which killed her long before she was ready to die, in the same sentence valid. I can't say it was a better approach than Ms. Boyer's as I haven't read her book, but as a cancer patient with unfavorable odds I wonder if reading "The Undying" will benefit me.
28
Good stuff - you are now living ‘impossible days’ and I hope you find it exhilerating.
19
A double mastectomy as an outpatient procedure is barbaric! I’m almost eighty now and think I would just forgo treatment.
56
@S. Bernard
And this in the world's richest country.
38
S. Bernard, you can thank the insurance companies that dictate care.
37
@S. Bernard
It's a mixed bag. I had two mastectomies here in Canada, at a very good hospital with a great surgeon, 13 years ago. They were separated by 4 months. They kept me overnight for the first one, (standard), and kicked me out the next morning. The second mastectomy, I dug in my heals and refused, just refused, to go home, due to pain. I gained nothing by staying that second night. I wish I'd gone home to my own clean and safe and germ-free environment. But the key part (or "piece", as medical professionals love to say these days), is that I had a nurse coming in every day until my drains came out, to check on me, my incision, and change dressings. I paid nothing but my taxes for that service. The key thing is to have nursing support after you're out of the system. If you don't have that, it's barbaric indeed.
78