Senator Ted Kennedy had brain surgery today. He chose the best of the best and elected to go to Duke for his surgery. By all accounts the surgery was successful and the Senator feels like a million bucks. When I read that statement, it made me laugh. I'm quite familiar with the things we say after brain surgery.
On a morning much like this one in May of 1989, I was a patient just like Senator Kennedy waiting for my own appointment with a neurosurgeon for brain surgery at John's Hopkin's hospital in Baltimore. But unlike Senator Kennedy, I was a patient who had no medical insurance. Or the very deep pockets that would allow me to choose any doctor that I wanted in America to perform my surgery.
At the time, I was actually living in San Francisco. How I got from San Francisco to John's Hopkins is a story for another blog post, but I will share that there were a lot of angels at work and that I will be the very first one to tell you that there are events leading up to that day of surgery that stretch back all the way to when I was just six weeks old. No, I'm serious. So, I'll just have to wait to share that story. Today, we're talking about Senator Kennedy.
On that day in May, Senator Kennedy actually knew about my impending brain surgery. He actually also knew that I was a patient at John's Hopkins without medical insurance. That I was a very lucky girl who had been able to receive very costly medical treatment and brain surgery because I had a very rare and undiagnosed "cancer" in my brain that the good folks at Hopkins decided made me the perfect candidate for their teaching hospital. It was sheer luck (and perhaps because I do believe that the Universe always does provide) that I ended up as a guinea pig for those 19 doctors at John's Hopkins.
But back to Senator Kennedy. As we all know, he's always been a champion of health reform in this country and even for Universal Health Care for all our citizens. A very good friend of mine was working in his office that day in May as an intern and that was how Senator Kennedy was informed of the uninsured girl at Hopkins with the undiagnosed brain tumor who was about to have very invasive surgery that might erase her entire memory!
Senator Kennedy called my hospital room two days before my surgery and asked me all kinds of questions. What did I do for a living? Had I gone to college? How was it that I actually had a job, but no insurance? How did I manage to get myself to Baltimore from San Francisco?
He was kind, he was genuinely concerned and he wanted me to know that he was doing everything he could as the good Senator from Massachusetts to change the policies in our United States so that I would not be a girl without insurance any more. My story, he said, would help his cause. Would serve as an inspiration on the Senate floor.
My surgery, as you all must have gathered by now, on that day in May oh so many years ago, was very successful. When they woke me up and told me that I was going to be okay and that I was still alive, I exclaimed, "You guys are awesome! Can I have some lemonade?"
So I understand when Senator Kennedy said he feels like a million bucks and might want to do that again tomorrow. I know he's grateful to be alive. I know that he might be thinking about all the would haves and could haves and should haves that he's had over the last 76 years of his very successful life and is thinking that perhaps there isn't time now for any more of those. That now life is about really living. Right now.
I'm sending him lots of love and light. I know I'm just a girl who once was in his shoes. But I also know what it meant to have him call me and really care. So I just want him to know that I really care, too. I really do.
And every day I'm truly grateful to be alive.
