A post with more footnotes than text

Ladies and Gentlement, it is Annika season again.

"Annika who?"

Ah, see, I anticipated that question: here's the background.

Annika's health history.

The long and extroardinarily sad story of Annika's last winter. (Start on that entry, and keep going until February.)

(Neither of the above should be attempted without tissues.)

Annika's unexpectedly good summer.

Annika's Internet Insurance Policy.

The story behind Annika's Internet Insurance Policy.

The organization through which Annika's family is fundraising for Annika's Internet Insurance Policy.

Just because.

~~~~~

I can't imagine this. When I was three years old and my parents gave me an infant aspirin and I started throwing up blood, they took me to the hospital. I stayed there until I was well. When I was fourteen and I had a bad kidney infection, I went to the hospital and stayed there until I was well. When I was seventeen and I was diagnosed with diabetes, I went to the hospital and stayed there until I knew how to take care of my condition. When I was 22 and couldn't breathe on Christmas Day, I went to the hospital (asthma). When I was twenty-eight and pregnant as a type 1 diabetic, I received regular prenatal care including regular ultrasounds, doctor's appointments, blood tests, and the delivery when I needed it. When I went into labour early, I went to the hospital, and they delivered Frances and kept her in the hospital for eight days--which seemed about six days too long at the time. And, if the merry-go-round of specialists and experts trying to diagnose her short stature seemed like hell, at least we did not have to pay for the indignity.

At no point was I ever presented with an itemized bill for any of these services. They had been paid for through taxes. So thoroughly do I take this system for granted that I cannot imagine having to consider finances when determining treatment. I have always been able to select what was best for me or for Frances without choosing which bill not to pay that month, or worse. Canada's health care system is not perfect; but any political rumblings of dismantling it raise my hackles faster than almost anything, because I know better than most Canadians have the opportunity to learn how much it is worth to have the kind of system that we do. When we (finally) brought Frances home from the hospital with a plastic bag full of special breastmilk bottles and preemie diapers and the nipples that attach to the special hospital bottles, Erik and I marveled at how they just shoved handfuls of each in the bag. The hospital cared about us, and about Frances; the bill was already taken care of. What we could afford and how we were going to pay for it never even entered our minds.

The Canadian health care system is far from perfect--if it were, then treatments for chronic conditions would also be covered, instead of today's current insane regime of not paying for the treatments and instead paying to treat the catastrophic consequences of not treating chronic conditions properly for decades, which is not only cruel but many times more expensive. So it's not perfect. But it's a whole lot better than it could be.

It strikes me, in an entirely pious, self-righteous, typically Canadian way, that this is a civilized way of doing things. Not the civilized way, since there are many civilized options. The uncivilized way would be, oh, I don't know, to force families facing a health crisis to face a financial crisis at the same time. To force people to sacrifice their economic well-being, their savings, their house equity, their credit, to save a loved-one's life. Barbaric.

Did I say that out loud? Yes. Yes I did. I'll say it again, even: barbaric.

I have absolutely no way to convince the American political establishment to implement any kind of safety net for health care expenses. I mean, if the American people can't do it, and major American corporations can't do it, then one suburban mom near Toronto sure as hell can't do it. But maybe I can help one family put together enough of an economic cushion that when their little girl is undergoing yet another liver transplant with all the trauma that involves, the nagging question "How are we going to pay for this?" is not lurking at the backs of their minds when the bills start rolling in. Or I can try.

As a result, I seem to have found myself doing a bit of fundraising for Annika and her family. It's odd. I'm not a fundraiser. Never once have I ever gone door to door and tried to sell things for money, or asked for donations. Not even as part of Girl Guides or to pay for a camping trip. I have no sales skills. I am, first of all, too shy, and second of all, incapable of the sorts of harmless exaggerrations that such undertakings require. ("Please buy this chocolate bar. OK it's kind of crappy and it's overpriced, but it would sure help me out a lot.") So this is completely out of character, but there it is: I'm fundraising for Annika. So far the campaign has involved a Virtual Casserole Campaign, Artists for Annika, several raffles of donated items, and the lovely Julie of a little pregnant donating the advertising revenue from her blog to Annika's fund for one month.

(There is also a local fundraising effort in the real world, and if you are in the Chicago area and would like to be involved, you can email me for details at andrea AT athenadreaming DOT org.)

This is where you come in, and there are several things you can do:

1. You can advertise. Put a button on your site, post about it, tell friends or family off-line. Buttons are available on Annika's fundraising site.

2. You can donate a raffle item. Raffles are starting again this month.

3. You can help with the administrative side of things: updating the site, doing a raffle draw, brainstorming new fundraising options (some will be coming over the next few weeks, as we kickstart the campaign again). If you'd like to help with the organizing, you can email me at andrea AT athenadreaming DOT org or leave a comment on this post, and I'll add you to the mailing list.

4. But most usefully, you can donate. All of the publicity, raffle items and good ideas in the world will not help to pay the medical bills. If you can afford it, any donation, no matter how small, will be appreciated by one family in a situation no Canadian family ever needs to contemplate. (And, because everyone likes it better when it's fun, all raffle proceeds go straight to Annika's campaign fund--I never even see a nickel.)

I think of it this way:

If there were a universal health care system in the USA today, each of my American readers would already be paying for Annika's upcoming transplant. Only a few pennies each, probably, but you would be paying for it. You don't have a universal health care system, so you're not paying for it financially.

But, just because we can, let's pretend.

Let's pretend that your taxes are funding this surgery. I know you all already pay through the nose, especially the diabetics in the audience, for private health insurance; but maybe you can find a little bit extra as a pretend-health-tax.

Not just because it is a good thing to do, and will help a beautiful little girl and her amazing mama to face the fall and winter a bit easier in spirit than they are otherwise likely to.

But because this could happen to you.

I mean, did you see my list up there? I've been in the hospital for taking bad pills, for kidney infections, for diabetes, for asthma, for childbirth. Erik has been in the hospital multiple times for a dislocated shoulder. We both are likely to be in the hospital again, and gods only know for what. It could be worse. A lot worse.

And so could you. Probably this already worries you. You wonder, if it happens, how will you pay for it? What will it cost? How will you cope?

If you help out another family right now, maybe you can rest a little easier, knowing that in your hour of need, strangers might reach out to help you, too.

Posted by Andrea at September 21, 2006 7:18 AM under Friends and Others

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