In appreciation: Elisabeth Heath, M.D., Melanie Smith, R.N., Tammy Carreri, R.N., and Laura Zubeck, R.N., M.B.A.
With special thanks to Paul Ehrmann, D.O., and Kenneth Goldman, M.D.
Ten months ago, just 11 days after I turned 75, I was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. Over the ensuing months since, I have been treated by a dream team of medical professionals of the highest caliber and am now past immediate danger. I have been told that I will quite probably die of some other malady -- perhaps, as I have written before, aggravation.
But I could just as well be dead and gone by now. A PSA level above 560 at the outset together with a telling ultrasound and biopsy dictated that surgery would be dangerous as well as useless.
My oncologist -- a world-class physician-researcher in the complexities of prostate cancer -- decided to continue the treatment a kind urologist had begun, namely injections of a drug that lowers the level of testosterone on which the cancer cells feast. The goal is to starve them to death or at least into long-term hibernation. And if they awaken, I have been assured that there are other available measures that could put them out of business.
The once-every-three months injections are frightfully expensive. So are the periodic bone scans and CT scans -- both in four figures. The attendance of the oncologist and her associates does not come for nothing, either. Nor do the prescription drugs.
I am a retired priest living on a modest pension and Social Security. Fortunately, my talented wife of 35 years is gainfully employed, though we have to keep our eyes trained on the bottom line. Had circumstances required us to pay all the costs associated with treatment from my income, we would easily and already have spent most of my pension and Social Security for 2014 and would be on the verge of destitution, not to mention an imminent burden upon our adult children.
Prostate cancer, absent early surgery, tends to accompany one who has it to the grave. As of this writing otherwise in robust health, I intend to live long enough to see our five grandchildren at the very least through their adolescence and, ideally, through college. Anything past that would be a bonus.
Medicare could make that possible. It is, however, the bugaboo of many of those soon to assume expanded legislative power in this country. They make snide references to Medicare as an "entitlement." Medicare is not an entitlement. It has been earned by millions of us throughout our years of employment and on into retirement.
The monthly Medicare premium has been deducted from my Social Security benefit since I turned 65 a decade ago. I have begrudged not one penny of those deductions against the day I might need that benefit to maintain or restore my health which, in turn, would allow me to continue to be a useful human being.
My pension fund provides a supplement to Medicare as it recognizes that many of us who have given years of service to priestly ministry were paid substandard salaries that generally go with the job. Praise be to the spouses who have made the difference. To my Roman Catholic confreres, my sincere commiseration.
I am alive and well at this writing because, despite unending efforts to make it otherwise, we live in a nation that to some degree operates on a distributive economy. It is what makes possible such lifesavers as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Even as I have paid income taxes all my working life and have paid into Social Security and Medicare through FICA, I now am able to draw on both as a senior citizen with lots left to give so long as I can maintain my health.
Such a distribution of national wealth through Medicare is a very good thing for our culture as a whole. Here I am, a man in his 76th year being treated for cancer, yet, thanks to my treatment, still able to contribute to knowledge through research, writing and teaching in my fields of competence. I am able as well to continue my volunteer work at a nonprofit where huge differences for good are made every day in people's lives. If any of them wish to thank me for whatever they assume I personally have done for them, they should thank Medicare and my medical team instead.
May the incoming Republican majority in the U.S. Congress see it that way. Rather than undo Social Security and Medicare, may the new Congress support and improve both for the sake of a healthier nation. It would be too bad to waste the acquired wisdom of elders who, if well or well enough, could mentor the next generation pro bono publico.
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Notice: Readers of the Westar Institute/Jesus Seminar's journal The Fourth R will find an article by Harry Cook on pages 19-23 and 28 of the November-December 2014 issue (Vo. 27, No. 6). www.westarinstitute.org/resources/more-about-the-fourth-r
