Blogger Facing Surgery Without Insurance, Not Friends

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Blogger Facing Surgery Without Insurance, Not Friends

James Joyner | Friday, October 21, 2005

Via Media Bloggers Association founder Robert Cox, I hear that fellow MBA member Terry Heaton is Facing surgery without insurance:

I’ve struggled with writing about this, because it is intensely personal. Self pity isn’t my aim; I wish only to inform.

When the Internet company I was running (and in which I’d invested my life’s savings) finally went belly-up in 2001, and I lost my shirt, I found myself in the unenviable position of living in this country without health insurance. This was difficult for a prideful man, especially one who is getting up there in age and needs health care.

It’s a good news/bad news kind of a thing, and I want to share a few things that you might not be aware of. First, the bad news. I have a lump in my left breast that needs to be removed, and I’m having surgery on Thursday. I’ll find out Friday if it’s cancer, although I must say that’s pretty darned rare. It is, however, breast cancer awareness month, and you’d better believe I’m aware. Facing something like this without insurance isn’t fun.

Thankfully, his doctors are being gracious and holding down the charges considerably. Still, major surgery isn’t cheap even with insurance paying the bills. Fortunately, as he found out, he is “Facing surgery with friends:”

This is another deeply personal post, and I don’t really know where to begin. I have experienced an outpouring of love so profound that it cannot be fairly articulated. When I posted on Sunday that I was facing surgery to remove a tumor, and that I didn’t have health insurance, I did so because I thought my knowledge of health care in such a predicament might benefit others.

Jeff Jarvis urged me to put a tip jar on my site, and what followed was truly astonishing to me. Like the closing scenes of It’s a Wonderful Life, friends I both knew and didn’t know came to my rescue, and my understanding of love reached a new level. While I don’t have all the money yet, I’m we’re close. Four days ago, I was in an untenable situation; today, I’m free. This is the miracle of love.

[...]

I’ve learned that facing surgery without insurance is nothing compared to facing surgery with friends.

If you’d like to help, please consider hitting Terry’s tip jar, located in the upper left hand corner of his site.

About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.

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