What Cancer Patients Do for Fun

When we’re not waiting on hold for hours at a time, or stuck in the bathroom with upset tummies (or worse), we call our insurance companies.

Just for fun.

I have a bill from the University of Washington Medical Center that dates back to 2005. As far as I can tell, I do not owe this money, and I have had numerous conversations both with the billing office at the UWMC and with my insurance company, trying to straighten it out.

They each, however, refuse to talk to the other about the bill, so it has been dragging on for almost two years, and every so often I get a reminder in the mail.

I got one just last week, as a matter of fact, and I’m saving it for a day when I’m in the mood for a fight.

But of course I’m always calm on the phone—sarcastic is as far as I will go. And logical. Most people who work in these jobs can't deal with logical. I also take copious notes, so that I can blog about it later.

See 15 Phone Calls for an example of what I mean.

What Jimbo Did for Fun
Just a couple of weeks before he died, I was e-mailing back and forth with a friend of a friend named Jim, or Jimbo, because I wanted to use something that he had written.

He gave me permission, and here it is:

Cancer patients such as myself consider applying for health insurance a sporting event.

Consider the following secret pleasures of a myeloma patient being interviewed for health insurance:

-- The record-breaking pause in the telephone conversation while the interviewer looks up myeloma

-- The steady barrage of queries about LIFETIME prescription drug cap, LIFETIME organ transplant cap and LIFETIME overall benefit

-- Raging against the unfavorable political climate for stem cell research

-- Casually mentioning that you hope your FIRST-line-treatment drug cost will be under $100K per year.

When I am really feeling blue, I solicit a life insurance company or two, but that's really dirty pool in my opinion.

What do you do for fun? I’d like to know. Send me an e-mail, or add a comment to this post.

Want to read Jimbo's blog? He has a great post on his homepage, "The Ten Commandments of Travel (With a Mate)" and also an account of the week he was first diagnosed with cancer back in 2002, called "Jimbo's Awful Week."

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.