Tuesday, February 19, 2008

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

Tomorrow I see my onco to find out the results from my latest rounds of scans and blood tests.

One hour later and five blocks away is a free screening of Sicko. (I never did get make it to this when it was in the theaters. I thought in the midst of trying to wrangle with my own medical drama, it might send me over the edge.)

This irony is not lost on me. The big question is... if the cancer is back, does that mean I should or should not go sit through Sicko? What is the universe trying to tell me?

2 comments:

Ed said...

Hell, I don't know if the universe is telling us ANYTHING these days. I just saw "Lorenzo's Oil" on DVD and am reading "Flowers for Algernon" (again - for a book club). Both are explorations of the weirdly connected scientific and medical communities, and both are troubling, illuminating, and provocative. Does the news about your very own self really matter to the way you think about the systems that we try to use to understand and treat our very own selves? Of course. But maybe the way we view both the system AND our selves needs to be explored in both personal and impersonal ways.

I have chosen to skip "Sicko" because I am thoroughly tired of my interactions with the medical and social establishments in anything other than a personal way. I am disgusted by the way that the insurance companies make it the patient's problem to figure out codings and billings and payments, and by the fact that so many people want to have insurance because it is the only way to get a modicum of care. I don't need a movie to show me more of that morass.

I'd skip the movie regardless of the contents and quality of your conversation with your oncologist. Go buy yourself an ice cream cone, or better yet, a good single-malt scotch. But that's just me.

:)

inger said...

I do have to second Ed's notion of a single-malt scotch. Sounds like a capital idea. Instead of watching Sicko you should lay your hands on an old Peter Sellers movie.