Back on July 7th, when Jacob and Panina Licht joined us for lunch, we were sidelined (or perhaps, forechecked is the better term, given their, er her, love of hockey) by the news of Panina's breast cancer diagnosis.
The community, led by some true heroines, jumped into action and, I'm excited to say, taking advantage of technology's capabilities, used the CaringBridge service to create a customized site to help them with the mundane details of life as they faced this vicious disease.
Back during my cancer treatments, I noted that I thought offering to help with specific tasks was the best way to be of assistance. My friend, Daniel, has another suggestion.
Regardless, the support was overwhelming...the only reason I know that is b/c whenever the nameless one went to the site, all of the options for assisting were already taken.
Anyhow, it's been a long 7 months for the Lichts as they've endured surgery, chemo, and radiation. I'd spoken w/Panina on the phone a few times (usually trying to persuade Jacob to get out of the house for a bit and provide me with an excuse to drink scotch without getting a look from the nameless one), but hadn't seen her since then.
There are moments in life when you just feel the spiritual force descend upon you.
It so happens the portion of the Torah read in synagogue this morning concerned the giving of the Ten Commandments by God at Mt. Sinai, a spiritual moment, indeed.
And I felt a tremendous sense of spirituality when I turned this morning and saw Panina for the first time walk into the social hall with a big grin on her face.
With her treatments behind her and on the road to recovery, she exuded the positive lifeforce for which she is widely known and demonstrated that, indeed, "where there is a will, there is a way." Her motto, of sorts, based on her favorite show was "Panina the Cancer Slayer."
When I called tonight to make sure that a blog post about her would be ok (hey, that's progress compared to Albany, right?), the conversation turned to a feature article in US News in which she was mentioned (I stay away from 'mainstream media,' so I didn't know about it.)
In it, the author raises the question that women under 40 should, despite medical conventional wisdom to the contrary, actually go for a baseline mammogram. The odds, however, are VERY slim that any one of them has it.
Now, Panina and Jacob are graduates of the U. of Chicago, the Economics department of which is famous for its free market thinking, so I know the kind of debates that may be ok with them, may not be ok with others. (In fact, Jacob has told me once that he reads only 2 blogs, besides mine...and the bloggers are both Nobel Prize winners in Economics-not bad company, eh? Here's one of them.)
"Panina," I said. "You realize that your experience could single-handedly lead to a massive increase in US healthcare expenditures as women who are at minimal risk clamor for mammograms."
"It already has," she replied. "Most of my friends are now going."
I thought back to a fantastic book I read, the Epidemic of Care about this exact topic. It's when people demand/expect the highest level of care, regardless of the cost. I was reminded of the debate I had here on the blog about my grandmother's $3,000 a month medicine... and whether it was worth it or not...on a societal level.
"How much should society be willing to pay for the one person like you who gets detected early?"
[remember please, Panina is a unique woman who can maintain the macro view of a situation despite her obvious personal interest in it]"Well, it's worth it for that one woman."
"Sure, and at $10 to society, no question. But, what about $1 billion or $10 billion?"
"How much is a life worth?"
"And that is the problem with healthcare..."
But, that's a topic for another day. Today we celebrate the miracles of modern medicine and the strength of human will and perseverance.
It was good to see you, Nina!
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