Take a Second

Every once in a while an email reaches my inbox that is worthy of its last line request, "Please pass along..."

Rarely one to send along forwards, I am breaking my own rule and asking that you, the readers of my blog, take a second to read the following excerpt from an email I received this morning.

Proposed Mastectomy Law Change (written by a surgeon) ;

I'll never forget the look in my patients eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drains, new exercises and no breast. I remember begging the doctors to keep these women in the hospital longer, only to hear that they would, but their hands were tied by the insurance companies.

So there I sat with my patient giving them the instructions they needed to take care of themselves, knowing full well they didn't grasp half of what I was saying, because the glazed, hopeless, frightened look spoke louder than the quiet 'Thank you' they muttered.

A mastectomy is when a woman's breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue. If you know anyone who has had a mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards. Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure. Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery.

There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the 'drive-through mastectomy' where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below.

http://www.mylifetime.com/community/my-lifetime-commitment/breast-cancer/petition/breast-cancer-petition

This takes about 2 seconds. PLEASE PASS THIS ON.

At 31 years young, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and after going through painful radiation therapy, had a mastectomy. It horrifies me to think that Congress would be willing to send women home only hours after such an invasive surgery. Surely there are ways to cut health care costs other than putting our mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, and friends at risk. Please take the time to click on the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act button below. The button will link you directly to the petition on the Lifetime website. Then ask your family and friends to do the same. Feel free to grab the button I've created for your own blog. And for all of you Facebook users out there, after completing the brief petition on the Lifetime site, you can grab a badge to post to your profile to help spread the word about stopping breast cancer for life.

Many thanks!