Breast Cancer Treatment…What Is Your Life Worth?

Breast Cancer Treatment…What Is Your Life Worth? — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

Revolutionary new cancer drugs offer hope where there was none. But the price tag may be too high for some to bear.

Many Americans are already having to decide between food on the table and their prescription medications. The health care crisis is hitting hard, and the cost of prescription drugs is sky-rocketing. But what happens when you have to decide between expensive breast cancer treatments to save your life, and paying the mortgage on your house? How much could you afford to spend, to save your life? It’s not even a fair question to ask, but many cancer patients are being forced to answer it.

This is an excerpt from a recent article in SELF magazine…

Seven months after being diagnosed with stage IIIB inflammatory breast cancer, 37-year-old Diekmeyer had spent nearly 100 days in doctors’ offices or the hospital near her Ohio home. She’d had five surgeries, with another scheduled for September; slogged through more than three months of grisly chemotherapy; suffered the indignities of baldness and violent nausea. After all that, she still didn’t know if she’d survive the year. But Diekmeyer had another, more immediate, fear keeping her up nights. Because of mounting medical bills, she was worried she might lose her home.

Marianna took a look at “What is your life worth?” — Marianna is a military veteran with over 16 years of service, and is a college graduate with degrees in political science and human resource. This is what she thinks…

Ever the advocate for women’s health and the pursuit of advancing women’s issues in medical science, I was reading Self Magazine’s article bought today while flipping through the stacks of magazines to buy while contemplating what to make for dinner (okay I digress……) in regards to the journey of several women plagued with cancer and the expensive drugs out there being sold to save their lives. — read her full post here

As a nurse working on an oncology unit many years ago, I would sometimes think about whether or not I would choose to have debilitating chemo treatments if I were ever diagnosed with an incurable cancer. Not that I wouldn’t want to live, I just sometimes wondered, if I were faced with the dilemma of quality vs. quantity, what would I choose? I never thought back then, that I (or anyone else for that matter) might someday be faced with not even having a choice. But that is exactly what is happening today.