Archive for November, 2008

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A letter to Dr. Patrick Hammen

Dear Dr. Hammen,
I just wanted you to know what my life is like as a consequence of desicions you made almost four years ago.
We had our Thanksgiving dinner today, as we usually do. I volunteer to work on Thanksgiving so other people can get home to be with their families, and then members of my [...]

Could this be possible?

Check it out:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-jesse-jackson-jr/building-a-new-wall-the-f_b_146606.html
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. proposes a Constitutional amendment that would guarantee health care to all Americans.
We already spend more per capita on health care than anybody else, and a lot of that is because we don’t give people preventive care or chronic disease management. We could work on eliminating overtreatment, streamline patient records, [...]

Insuring everyone isn’t enough

Our health care system needs a major overhaul, top to bottom. It is possible for us to improve our system in a way that gets quality health care for everyone AND costs less money.
Check out this piece in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/20/AR2008112002420.html?nav=hcmodule
Pretty impressive.
Getting access to quality health care needs to be a top priority, but we [...]

Messages from Mike

I opened an old notebook of Mike’s tonight as I was going through a box of his things. I’ve been meaning to read through the notebook for awhile and finally got to it tonight.
I found a short list,
 ”Foods to eat when I’m better:
1) Roast beef (my own)
2) Sushi
3) Mexican”
Then there was a page of Mike dealing [...]

Vacation memories

Rob and I are in Cape May, NJ, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. This is where we came for our honeymoon and several of our anniversaries.
One of my rituals was to go to one of the many tacky gift shops and fnid something appropriately trashy for Mike. Today as we cruised the shops, I saw [...]

Happy birthday to ME

Today is my 56th birthday. It wouls have been Mike’s 34th. We used to joke that the birthday wasn’t really his because I had it first. The first thing we did each Nov. 3 was get on the phone to each other. One of us would call the other, we would sing “Happy birthday to [...]

Help Life o' Mike

We need your help now more than ever. Your tax-deductible donation will help us get Patient Pals and Family Friends off the ground. Please consider a gift in honor or in memory of a loved one.

Patient Pals & Family Friends volunteer training

Our Feb. 27 training had to be postponed, but we have rescheduled. Join us 8 days, as we train our next group of volunteers for Patient Pals & Family Friends. The four-hour training will run 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and will include lunch. Patient Pals are people who have experience with an illness or disability. After training, they will be paired with someone who is newly diagnosed or disabled. Family Friends will be volunteers who are paired with family members of people who are ill or disabled, and will have been through the expeience of having a loved one with illness or disability.

In Loving Memory

Life o' Mike has participated two memorial services to remember those who have died from our broken health care system, one in Asheville and one in Raleigh. If you would like to organize more of these services, please contact lifeomike@gmail.com and we will help put it together. The services include stories, prayers and information on how people of faith can make a difference. About 45,000 people die each year because they don’t have health insurance, according to a recent study by Harvard Medical School and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That breaks down to one American every 12 minutes. Those people can be honored in the service by a bell chime and a moment of silence every 12 minutes in the service. For more information, call Leslie Boyd at 828-243-6712.

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