I was lucky: Lance Armstrong's pre-existing condition

Lance Armstrong's letter of October 2, 2009:
Today is LIVESTRONG Day. Thirteen years ago today, my doctor told me I had advanced testicular cancer. What most people don't know is that at the time, I didn't have health insurance. In the following weeks, I received letter after letter from the insurance company refusing to pay for my treatment. I was fighting for my life—but also for the coverage that I desperately needed.

The legislation currently being debated in Congress is not just words on a page—for many cancer survivors, it's a matter of life and death. Now, as this debate enters crunch time, I need your help to ensure that what happened to me doesn't happen to any other American.
No matter what side of the healthcare debate you're on, I believe we can all agree on two things:

No American should be denied health insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
No American should lose their insurance due to changes in health or employment.
Will you sign the LIVESTRONG Action petition to make sure any legislation includes these two critically important reforms? We'll deliver these to Capitol Hill this month as the debate reaches its climax and make sure our voices are heard in the debate.

When I received my diagnosis, I was between cycling contracts. My new insurer used the diagnosis as a reason to deny coverage after the new contract was signed. Fortunately, one of my sponsors intervened. At their insistence, I was added to their insurance company and was able to continue my life-saving treatment. If my sponsor, a powerful company, had not gone to bat for me, I may not have made it.

I was lucky. We can't rely on luck to ensure coverage and treatment for the millions of Americans affected by cancer. Some cannot get coverage because they've already been diagnosed. Others get calls from their insurance companies saying they have been dropped. It happens all the time—and it's unacceptable.

Every year on LIVESTRONG Day, we come together to take action for a world without cancer. In the U.S., a critical step is to make sure cancer survivors can get and keep their health insurance.

It has been 13 years since my diagnosis, but in some ways, not much has changed. No person should have to worry about health insurance while battling cancer. That so many do is an outrage, and we must speak out.

-Lance and the LIVESTRONG Action Team

Advice: Please sign the petition and forward it along to your friends and family.

Read another Lance Armstrong story. Thanks to Hari Khalsa for forwarding the email.

A state senator named Barack Obama: Disclosure of hospital infection rates

A night-shift nurse slipped into Jeanine Thomas' hospital room and whispered, "I don't know how you're taking this so well. If I were you, I'd be curled up in a ball crying."
The remark mystified Jeanine. She'd had ankle surgery, and yes, there had been complications. But she thought she was recovering. Was there something she didn't know?

In November 2000, Jeanine, then a 45-year-old antiques dealer, had slipped on ice and shattered her left ankle outside her suburban Chicago home. But days after surgery at her local hospital, the skin surrounding the incisions turned black, and her body swelled. Doctors wanted to amputate, but Jeanine, an avid tennis player, refused to let them.

Then, a friend told her about her mother's battle with MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant germ. Their symptoms matched. Jeanine confronted a doctor and learned the truth: She, too, had MRSA. Only now did the nurse's comment make sense.

Jeanine asked doctors how many people get MRSA. She was met by silence. "That's when I knew ― a light bulb went on in my head," she says. "They don't want anyone to know about this."

Jeanine epitomizes a revolt in health care. A growing number of consumer advocates ― many bound by ordeals with MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ― have vowed that if the U.S. hospital system will not heal itself, they will do it.
Five years ago, not a single state forced hospitals to reveal how many patients contracted infections while under their care. Now 25 states have some form of "report card" disclosure that can make hospitals more accountable.

After her ankle healed enough that she could walk, Jeanine cobbled together bits and pieces of information about a germ that few seemed to know about.

In 2003, she helped muster support for a bill requiring Illinois hospitals to disclose infection rates. A state senator named Barack Obama co-sponsored the legislation, which passed that year.

Thanks to Helen Haskell, and Seattle Times reporters Michael Berens and Ken Armstrong for the source story.

He waited to be rescued: Lance Armstrong’s definition of courage

Lance tells this joke in his memoir:

A man is caught in a flood, and as the water rises he climbs to the roof of his house and waits to be rescued. A guy in a motorboat comes by, and says, "Hop in, I’ll save you."

"No thanks," the man on the rooftop says. "My Lord will save me."

But the floodwaters keep rising. A few minutes later, a rescue plane flies overhead and the pilot drops a line.

"No thanks," the man on the rooftop says. "My Lord will save me."

But the floodwaters rise ever higher, and finally, they overflow the roof and the man drowns.

When he gets to heaven, he confronts God.

"My Lord, why didn’t you save me?!" he implores.

"You idiot," God says, “I sent you a boat, I sent you a plane.”

In a way we are all just like the guy on the rooftop. Things take place, there is a confluence of events and circumstances, and we can’t always know their purpose, or even if there is one. But we can take responsibility for ourselves and be brave.

We each cope differently with the specter of our deaths. Some people deny it. Some numb themselves with tequila. I was tempted to do a little of each of those things. But I think we are supposed to try to face it straightforwardly, armed with nothing but courage. The definition of courage is: the quality of spirit that enables one to encounter danger with firmness and without fear.

Read one of our athlete hero stories, or read more from It’s Not about the Bike.

My illness was starkly revealing: Cancer survivor Lance Armstrong

Lance's realization:

My illness was humbling and starkly revealing, and it forced me to survey my life with an unforgiving eye. There are some shameful episodes in it: instances of meanness, unfinished tasks, weaknesses, and regrets. I had to ask myself, "If I live who is it that I intend to be?" I found that I had a lot of growing up to do as a man.

I won't kid you. There are two Lance Armstrongs, pre-cancer, and post. I returned a different person, literally. In a way, the old me did die, and I was given a second life. Even my body is different, because during the chemotherapy I lost all of the muscle I had ever built up, and when I recovered, it didn't come back in the same way.

Cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't know why I got the illness, but it did wonders for me, and I wouldn't want to walk away from it. Why would I want to change, even for a day, the most important and shaping event in my life?

Odd as it sounds, I would rather have the title of cancer survivor than winner of the Tour [de France], because of what it has done for me as a human being, a man, a husband, a son, and a father.

Read another of Lance’s stories from his memoir, It’s Not about the Bike.

You have to believe, and you have to fight: Cancer survivor Lance Armstrong on courage

When I was 25, I got testicular cancer and nearly died. I was given less than a 40% change of surviving, and frankly, some of my doctors were just being kind when they gave me those odds.

Children [with cancer] have the ability to ignore odds and percentages. Maybe we can learn from them. What other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell.

After I was well again, I asked Dr. Nichols what my chances really were. "You were in bad shape," he said. I was one of the worst cases he had seen. I asked, "How bad was I? Worst 50%?" He shook his head. "Worst 20%?" He shook his head again. "Worst 10?" He still shook his head. When I got to 3%, he started nodding.

Lance's Advice: Anything's possible. You can be told you have a 90% chance or a 50% chance or a 1% chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight. By fight I mean arm yourself with all the available information, get second opinions, third opinions, and fourth opinions. Understand what has invaded your body, and what the possible cures are. It’s a fact of cancer that the more informed and empowered patient has a better chance of long-term survival.

People live, and in the most remarkable ways: Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor

Lance Armstrong on heart:

People die. But there is another truth, too. People live, and in the most remarkable ways. When I was sick, I saw more beauty and triumph and truth in a single day that I ever did in a bike race – but they were human moments, not miraculous ones. I met a guy in a fraying sweatsuit who turned out to be a brilliant surgeon [Dr. Scott Shapiro]. I became friends with a harassed and overscheduled nurse named LaTrice [Haney], who gave me such care that it could only be the result of the deepest sympathetic affinity. I saw children with no eyelashes or eyebrows, their hair burned away by chemo, who fought with the hearts of [five-time winner of the Tour de France Miguel] Indurain.

Advice: Read Lance Armstrong’s book, It’s Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.

Read another athlete cancer survivor story.