(Not) Home for Christmas
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
For the first time since he was in the service in the 1950s, my father may not be home for Christmas.
He was admitted to the hospital last week after experiencing complications related to chemotherapy. While his doctors are trying to work out a way to continue to treat him and release him, it’s likely he won’t be discharged on or before Christmas Day.
It’s difficult to feel hopeful right now; I know my dad is aware of the odds because he reminded me of the statistics for pancreatic cancer when I last spoke with him.
He’s done well up to now, more than two years since his diagnosis. The original cancer was knocked out by radiation therapy. The first round of chemo also worked well. But this cancer is stubborn and his numbers didn’t look good after a blood test earlier this year, so back into chemo he went.
But now it’s the chemo damaging him more than the cancer. I won’t go into specifics but the reason he’s in the hospital now isn’t because of the cancer but because of the therapy.
There’s no other effective alternate therapy, either.
The cost is staggering, too. I don’t know how much Medicare and his insurance are covering, but at tens of thousands of dollar per infusion, chemo is going to eat his life savings. The odds of survival for pancreatic cancer are poor but some of the odds are certainly shaped by patients’ financial ability to fight the disease.
We went through this last year when my father-in-law died after a five-year battle with a different cancer. He was left nearly bankrupt. In his case there were two immunotherapies employed over five years, and they were effective just as long as his oncologist said they would be, almost to the month. He died of congestive heart failure which may or may not have been caused by his cancer since his other siblings also died of congestive heart failure in the absence of cancer.
My father-in-law only had to fight the cancer and his genetics.
My dad, however, has to deal with betrayal on top of cancer.
When I spoke with my dad we also discussed therapies – there aren’t any, really, just the radiation and chemo he’s had to date. If there were effective immunotherapies we would have explored them but there aren’t any. Nor will an mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer arrive soon to help my dad’s immune system fight the cancer on its own.
There won’t be any soon under the Trump administration with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. helming Health and Human Services. All cancer research has been affected but cancers without immunotherapies or other effective alternatives to radiation and chemotherapy are those most in need of mRNA vaccine research.
RFK Jr. has assured disruption to all, and discouraged researchers so much that many have left the U.S. to continue work abroad. The cuts to federal funding will suppress investment by other parties. The damage to the U.S. as a center for cancer and vaccine research will last long beyond Trump’s term in office.
It will last beyond my dad’s likely lifetime which will not receive the benefit of research in progress but throttled under Trump and RFK Jr.
It has to be utterly gutting to my dad who’s been a lifelong Republican voter to know the party to which he has been so loyal has been savaging public health at a time when he is most vulnerable and needs it the most — a betrayal unto death. Though we’ve discussed them before I haven’t and won’t ask him about the GOP or Trump because my day doesn’t need the additional aggravation.
But Dad did touch on RFK Jr., condemning him in his tersest fashion.
My dad doesn’t swear often. Very rarely, usually when he’s injured himself or something has broken during a repair he might muster a muttered “Damn!” or “Shit.” I am so not like my dad.
I do not ever recall him dropping an F-bomb. Again, I am so not like my dad.
My dad could be the image used in the meme of the Asian father – the stern face demanding more of progeny. He asked a lot of us, but then to not ask a lot would have been a failure on his part. He came from humble origins; he was dirt poor, the first in his family to go to college. He chose from one of two universities based on the entrance fee he could afford. Dad managed to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering and raise a family, each of whom went to college. His experience assured him that we were wholly capable of reaching his expectations.
With this lifelong experience I didn’t expect to hear my dad swear about RFK Jr.’s gross mismanagement of HHS.
Instead my dad tsk-tsked and called RFK Jr. incompetent.
I wish I could convey the sensation of a mic drop at this point. In my dad’s view, to be incompetent is utter failure. Incompetency means one should be immediately replaced by someone with competency, because one doesn’t acquire competency overnight.
Again, I didn’t discuss Trump or the GOP with my dad but the incompetency doesn’t stop with RFK Jr.
It’s a mark of failure on every legislator who voted to approve RFK Jr. as Secretary of HHS in spite of his history of anti-vaccine propaganda and his lack of medical education. It’s a mark of failure on Trump for his nomination of RFK Jr., catering to the crunchy mom faction and the conditioned MAGA base, along satisfying the driver behind Russian influence operations which fed the anti-vaccine/anti-mask/anti-science faction.
Americans are going to die – some have already died – because of RFK Jr.’s incompetency. Some are becoming disabled and will become disabled because his incompetency doesn’t stop at throttling cancer and vaccine research, but undermining vaccine protocols and public health messaging.
The explosion of measles and whooping cough cases, both of which had been managed by vaccines, will lead to greater numbers of disabled Americans. Measles has already killed at least three this year.
But vaccination numbers have dropped and continue to drop because the incompetent running HHS believes vaccines are somehow less safe than the diseases they prevent.
This same incompetent worm-eaten wackjob, approved by GOP legislators after nomination by a GOP president, has now ensured hope for immunotherapy and vaccines for disease like pancreatic cancer are throttled for at least the next three years.
Unless somehow GOP members of Congress catch a clue and realize national security includes the current and future health of this country, and investing in it with federal funding is essential, unless they catch a clue that a president with obvious age-related cognitive deficits is not the leader they should follow to assure the nation’s safety.
Unfortunately I won’t bet on this awakening during my father’s now-foreshortened lifetime.
__________
You can help Congress catch a fucking clue; call your members of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and demand they impeach RFK Jr. for incompetency. 5Calls.org also has a petition you can use to demand RFK Jr.’s impeachment.
Members of Congress are back in their state and district for the holiday break. You could also call the closest local office and find out if and when they are making public appearances at which you can demand they support impeaching the incompetent RFK Jr.
I started writing this piece yesterday after I learned my dad might not be home for Christmas.
Of course today we learned former GOP senator Ben Sasse has Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I feel for him and his family, knowing this holiday season will be difficult for them.
The GOP could honor him by impeaching RFK Jr. as soon as this holiday break is over.
Peace be with you and yours, Rayne.
Thanks. We’ll do the best we can with the time and resources we have. That’s all we can do, and we’ll make peace with it.
Ah, geez, Rayne – so sad to hear this. I don’t do “thoughts and prayers”, so just wishing you all well.
Appreciate the well wishes. I’m saving my ‘thoughts and prayers’ for the day RFK Jr. loses his job.
Rayne,
I am sorry. I hereby promise I will call that number and request RFK’s impeachment.
“I am so not like my dad.” Made me laugh. Nicely done.
My kids would argue I’m somewhat like my dad in that I’m a tiger mother who in turn has raised more future tiger parents. After I told the kids this spring I had dropped from the President’s List to VP’s List at school:
At least they lambaste me with memes and gifs and not stern-faced clucks. LOL
Thanks for promising to call your rep and senators. RFK Jr. must go.
My little brother, 62, died of pancreatic cancer this past May. There was only a few weeks between the diagnosis and his passing and he did not get any treatment other than blood thinners, a stroke was the immediate cause of death. My Trump worshiping mother, 95, blames the COVID vaccine.
Ugh. I hate how badly so many family members have been brainwashed.
I’m very sorry for your loss. My younger brother died of a stroke in August 2020 — I feel your pain.
Rayne, I am sorry for your loss. Your father is a wonderful man. I fear these ghouls will kill many more wonderful Americans.
Thanks. I wish I could share more about the unique character he is but I don’t want to violate his privacy any more than I have. But all of us have family members we esteem and none of us should have to fear their illness or death because the HHS Secretary is a conspiracy theorizing hack.
Your dad sounds like a person of great character. We need ordinary, extraordinary people like him to look to in these times. I am glad you have him to admire, to share, to love.
Beautiful and powerfully written.
I am at this moment recovering from cancer surgery (which was at Lemmen Holton) but I am not going to step on your piece by saying more other than that everything is going well for me.
But the one burning coal of anger that I have had throughout my treatement is that EVERYONE DESERVES THIS TREATMENT. The multiple ways we gate health care behind money is insane, it is evil, and I don’t know what I am going to do about it when I am well, but by god I am going to do SOMETHING.
I wish you rapid recovery from surgery and hope your health continues to improve going forward.
I’ll share that a friend lost another friend this past week to cancer last week; I suspect they died because they couldn’t afford more aggressive therapy. What a damned shame such a lovely person who was kind and generous couldn’t be with us longer because our national priorities are controlled by fascists.
I look forward to hearing what you’re going to do when you’re well enough to fight back. :-)
Rayne, I’m astonished in retrospect at how consistently excellent your many contributions here have remained, while you and your family are facing this difficult time. Our culture imposes expectations of “cheer” and “family togetherness” over the holidays that mere humans struggle to live up to. A crisis of any kind, like yours, strains against the hyped imagery and the repetition of “seasons greetings.” The contrast can make getting through times like this that much harder. You are in my prayers.
As I read your post about the human cost of this administration’s “incompetence,” I couldn’t help remembering the actual malevolence that undergirds so much of the damage–specifically in the case of those thousands of children who are dying now because Elon Musk took his chainsaw to USAID. I will never unsee their desperately thin arms and legs, or their eyes with the opacity that creeps in when hope has been extinguished. No American should unsee those kids.
Trump and his reckless crew are killing all over the world. The betrayal is occurring on a scale unmatched in this country’s history. Those seeking parallels must need look to monsters.