the persevering sick.

+beautiful things

Dear ones, 

I want to not write about the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting but I am sitting in the waiting room of the cancer center and it is all that I can think about. I want to not write about it because mostly everything’s been said, including my general take, which is that I don’t want to be in a world where people go around shooting people, and I also don’t want to be in a world where people die from medical neglect. 

I’m not the kind of anarchist who gets gleeful over dead rich people (or dead any people), but I am genuinely moved by the collective response to the news. The memes, the jokes, the celebrations have inspired understandable ambivalence, but the larger conversation is illuminating the brutality of the medical industrial complex, with insurance companies as the arbiters of it. Joshua P. Hill reflects: “What we’re called to ask is why the murder of one man must be described as unspeakable violence, but the systemic denial of life to 100,000 people is an acceptable business practice.” 

That this act has served as propaganda of the deed is…powerful. Even if I feel complicated about the tactic, I don’t feel complicated about the potential aftermath of it (e.g., CEOs being forced to consider their choices; insurance companies being forced to shift their approach (1); people feeling empowered to fight against the status quo).

I also want to not write about this because I have wanted to not write about the health hell P and I have been in for nearly two years. I am exhausted and bored by the tedium of these hospital visits, even while they also terrorize me. P is in a machine right now, one he has been in many times before, and we will find out in two hours if there are hints of more/renewed tumor growth.(2) As the current science stands, P will never be in remission from his cancer; this—these exhausting visits, the waiting, the intense anxiety before every scan—is our life now, whatever he and we have left of it. Alongside the treatment have been long and desperate battles with Medicaid, “benefits” he’s been denied and threatened with, ones he eventually obtained, but that we know we can’t count on. Alongside his cancer, I have been denied coverage for treatment that would help the chronic pain that began after (and in part because of) my fibroid surgery. I want to not write about this because it is the most depressing part of my life, and I want so badly to focus on the things that aren’t so pummeling. 

But Luigi got more people thinking about our living, and who gets to determine the quality of it. I am thinking of it too, of course, sitting in this hospital under fluorescent lights, surrounded by the persevering sick, IVs in their arms, and if they’re lucky, a friend or partner by their side. We are all quiet while HGTV plays in the background and I wonder who else is fretting about how they will cover the remainder of their bill; I wonder who else is thinking, steadily, about what can come from the rage of a person in untreated pain. 

I never want to end on low notes. I am embarrassingly hopeful, steadfastly and spiritually committed to being positively awed despite it all. And so I will turn toward this: there is possibility here. As Margaret Killjoy recently wrote: “We are blessed to live in uncertain times, when anything is possible. Terrible things are possible, to be sure. So are beautiful things. If you ask me, I suspect both will come to pass.” 

Below, some beautiful things. Next week (a week late) my 2024 culture favorites round-up. 

I love you. 

love & solidarity,

raechel 

(1)  I understand that what’s happening far more than reflection and policy change is that companies are beefing up security for their C-suites.

(2) We got good news from the scan. No new tumor growth which means that, for now, we are still on “watch and wait” rather than having to do surgery/chemo again. We are incredibly relieved.

Reading.