One Month Since the Transplant

Okay, it's been a long arduous process but enough about the Democratic primaries - how's James doing? I noted this morning that it's been 16 days since he returned home. One month ago tomorrow the transplant happened. That's a lot of little healthy cells growing and dividing. James came up with a good line about the entire process: A crazy balance between help and harm. Or was it "A crazy balance between harm and help"? The point is there is still a lot of finessing going on. Good things have to happen but not too fast.
So nobody is declaring victory here yet but the anxiety level has dropped from 2,000 miles up to around 100 feet. I've even begun wondering about the emotional toll, not just on James but on Stacey, his family and his friends. At times like this, you tend to bury emotions just to get through the ordeal, especially if you were scared by it. That's what this was: Courage versus fear and to get our courage up, we definitely suppressed some scary thoughts. Now that things have brightened again considerably, I'm turning to healing the spirit. Or at least recognizing that there could be issues here.
I even have a new suggestion for universal healthcare. First, do you realize what an opportunity the government has to win over the People during these problems? I mean I used to be very critical of OHSU for South Waterfront, etc... but after this I'll never badmouth them again. I am now an OHSU fan.
The politicians should provide universal healthcare, not just for us, but for their own job security and popularity. This should be an area where the normal dog-eat-dog rules don't apply and we take care of each other: "Oh, you're sick. Relax and get better and don't worry about a thing financially. We've got you covered."
Not only should that be automatic, but it would be less expensive than the sicko system we have now. That's the crazy part.
So what's my new idea? After all of the medical expenses are covered, there should be free counseling. Nothing out of hand. Just a few sessions where anyone who experienced the fear we just experienced can talk to someone and get the information needed to help put this behind us. That would be good government in action. It's not enough to beat these problems, if we're emotionally dinged by them going forward. Not only would you have citizens grateful for how they were treated but they would be healthier mentally to go out and be productive again. It could pay for itself although they said that about Iraq, too. Oh well. Just a thought on a rainy morning in May, 2008. ---Bill McDonald