It is unbelievable, unfathomable, reprehensible, and disturbing for me to hear the story of watered down chemotherapy given to cancer patients in Canada. Where is the social responsibility that humanity shares to give the BEST CARE POSSIBLE  to all humans? Have politics and financial gain really taken over all personal, moral rights and obligations? 20% less powerful medication given to four separate hospitals in Ontario alone for over a year!? How could this be possible? It genuinely turns my stomach to really believe that others are capable of this. I cannot begin to imagine how I would react if I found out the chemotherapy I received for a steady six months last year was anything less than the perfect mix of toxins.

Unless personally associated with someone who has cancer, you cannot even begin to imagine the amount of time and life that is dedicated to hospitals when in treatment for cancer. For those of you who don’t know personally, I’ll break it down for you. I was inpatient for just under a month in Sloan. That is 27 days straight. I spend about five hours there monthly for about 4 months now. That equates to 27 days, 20 hours. Before this, I spent about five hours in Sloan twice a month for 6 months (60 hours). We are up to 30 days 8 hours. After my initial month long stay at Sloan, I needed preventative chemotherapy. This required 6 day long hospital stays for four months. My total is now 54 days, 8 hours spent at Sloan. There was a day dedicated to receiving IVIG that had an adverse effect on me and subsequentely landed me in the ER and an extra four days in the hospital. appx. 60 days, 8 hrs. my last round of chemo, I developed a sort of immunity to the medications and broke fevers for most of those 6 days. I had to stay an extra three days for that. 63 days, 8 hrs. I began my bi-monthly appointments at Sloan in late August to Early September. Those appointments also timed out to be about three hours a piece and persisted until December. 7 appointments, 3 hrs a piece equals 21 hours. 61 days, 5 hours. Another two appointments in January and February 61 days, 11 hours. This does not include time spent getting bone marrow aspirations. This does not include my X-Ray appointments or CT scans. This does not include nurses visits where they checked my picc line. This does not include the 8 hour visits I had daily for at least a week after receiving my chemo in the hospital. This is the time I’ve spent trying to live. I have had to lose this time, months upon months at this point, just to keep living. It sickens me to think I would do all that—trade my hair, stress out of my mind, and lose time from my life, to receive less medicine than needed to keep on living. When are the people in this world going to stop exploiting the weak, sick, and helpless? I just can’t understand. My heart goes out to anyone that has to deal with this added blow in their life.

On a side note, I am sorry if my blog has taken a turn to the personal. I guess that is the nature of the beast. However, I will try to make my blog less ranty and more informative from now on.

Here is a link to the story