A Christmas Carol

POTR is Hot in San Antonio!

Laurie Kelley June 28, 2011

Insurance is still the hottest subject in bleeding disorders, and this past weekend in San Antonio really proved it. We had a great turn out for “Pulse on the Road,” our unique symposium, sponsored by Baxter Healthcare Corporation, that is completely devoted to educating patients about insurance reform. As guests of the Texas Central Hemophilia Association and Lone Star Chapter of NHF, we presented a three-hour symposium on Sunday, June 26, from 7 am to 10 am, to an audience of over 200 patients and their families.

The chapters did an excellent job of attracting patients and families to attend. With hundreds of family members and a fair amount of industry representatives, this was a stellar meeting. I loved seeing the children with hemophilia scampering about, or holding relay races in the hallways as part of the supervised kids’ programs. No joint problems anywhere!

While a nutritious, hot breakfast was served, I started the session Sunday morning with an overview of hemophilia’s history and how our unique history has been placed high on the radar screen of insurance companies and state governments. My talk was followed by Elizabeth Stoltz of Baxter Healthcare, who gave an Insurance 101 session; her talk covered common terms that all families will need to know to navigate healthcare reform. Then, Michelle Rice of NHF presented the results of a patient-focused survey from last fall, which tested to see how much bleeding disorder patients knew about their insurance and insurance reform. Results were encouraging, as high numbers knew that lifetime maximums were being eliminated and that dependents would be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26.

Finally Jim Romano of Patient Services, Incorporated (PSI) gave the keynote about healthcare reform. Breaking down the many changes into digestible amounts, Jim covered how the new healthcare reform will help us, and what we need to monitor to ensure we continue to have access to the care we need.

To spice things up and keep our audience sharp at such an early hour, I asked the audience after each presenter a question, and whoever got the right answer won cash! The message: we are trying to educate to keep the cash in your wallets. If you don’t know much about your own insurance policy, you may overpay. If you don’t know how insurance reform will impact you, you may lose money. In these economic times, we want every family to preserve their hard-earned dollars. The “competition” added some fun to the topic of insurance and we had some sharp people in the audience!

Following the speakers we had three breakout sessions on Medicaid, Out of Pocket Costs and Advocacy. Everyone agreed that 45 minutes for break out was not enough. These interactive and informal gatherings proved the highlight of the meeting. Patients were able to ask questions about their personal situation with experts in their field. Jim Passamano, of Sufian & Passamano LLP, a lawyer specializing in chronic disorder and insurance, helped explain Medicaid changes to many families. Shannon Brown, a social worker from Texas, spelled out certain out of pocket costs that patients will need to monitor closely. And Michelle Rice of NHF presented a new personal tool to help families get a handle on comparing insurance plans.

Simultaneous translation into Spanish helped the many Spanish-speaking families understand how healthcare reform may impact them.
Patients truly appreciated the three-hour program and the chance to speak to insurance experts in bleeding disorders. “I would like to have attended all the [break out] sessions and not just one!” commented one attendee. “I’m very pleased at how much I learned and all the wonderful people I met!” exclaimed another. When asked if they learned something new, every hand in the room was raised!

Thanks to Luis and Shannon, executive directors of their chapters, and coordinators of the event, for inviting us, and to Baxter Healthcare Corporation for their sponsorship.

Visit our website (“Events”) to see where we take Pulse on the Road next!

Visit our website to download your complimentary copy of Pulse, our newsletter devoted to insurance reform for the bleeding disorder community.

Interesting Book I Just Read
Altitude Illness: Prevention & Treatment
Stephen-Bezruchka, MD
This is a small book, written to be taken while trekking on mid- to high-altitude mountains. I read most of it on one plane ride. It’s chock full of good information, and goes into great (and scary) detail of what can happen to you if you are not careful on the mountains. It’s very dry, terse, to the point, and may make you think twice about attempting the big ones. Too late for me! I am going to tackle Mt. Kilimanjaro in August. The strange thing about altitude sickness is you just never know who it will strike. Marathoners and top athletes, like Martina Navratilova, can get it, and 12 year olds with limited climbing experience may avoid it. You never know till you are there. Two stars.

Memorial Day of a Different Sort

Laurie Kelley May 30, 2011

Today is Memorial Day in the US, where we remember and honor those brave soldiers who fought in wars to protect our country and liberate others. It would be hard to find a family who does not have someone in it who gave their life for their country. I have at least one in my family: my uncle Jim Morrow, my father’s brother, who died in 1967 in Viet Nam. We find ways to remember our brave heroes: Jim has a place of honor on the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC, and on the virtual Wall, on line.

This week we will also remember heroes from a different war: HIV.

On June 2, PBS will at last broadcast Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale, by Marilyn Ness. This emotional, deeply moving documentary portrays life with hemophilia before the “war,” when there was no blood clotting factor. This in itself can bring you to tears, watching children hobble about on crutches, suffering with joint bleeds, in hospital beds when they should be out in the sunshine playing. Then, the miracle of factor, and how it transformed lives from being crippled to being freed. Factor liberated all the children from this sad fate.

Who could have ever, in their wildest dreams, known that in the late 1970s a virus, unlike anything the world had ever seen, lurked in the nation’s blood supply? This is the stuff of science fiction, not reality. But it became our reality. Thousands were infected, and thousands died horrible deaths.

I know personally almost many of the heroes in the film: Dana Kuhn, Bob Massie, and Glenn Pierce. Bob says, this “is the story of a failed medical system, of companies and politicians putting profits before people, and of patients being kept in the dark about their very lives… It is the story of a critical piece of American history, when thousands of patients, doctors, and families came together to repair a broken system.”

Here is also Bob’s statement, which best expresses the heroism evident in those infected: “When I learned, more than twenty-five years ago, that my lifesaving injections had exposed me to a dangerous virus, I made the resolution to continue living each day, always staying true to myself and those I loved, and never giving up hope. I was lucky, and overcame them both with the help of world-class medical care and the love and support of my friends and family.” Bob is now running for US Senate.

But thousands of others were not so lucky. Like fallen soldiers in a devastating, insidious war, they are now remembered and honored in Bad Blood, which memorializes their struggle, their sacrifice and their legacy. Bad Blood is their local memorial park, their Viet Nam wall, their Iwo Jima monument. Clearly, their deaths, and the determined action of the survivors to seek justice and a change in the blood collection system and factor production, have made hemophilia treatments– and our entire blood banking syste–safer.

I cannot stress strongly enough to watch the movie. If you want to know the psyche of the US hemophilia community, understand its anguish and advocacy and determination, you must see this movie. If you want to see true American heroes, watch this movie. It’s not just a documentary, but a memorial to fallen soldiers.

Bad Blood is showing on WGBH at 10AM, 4PM, 6PM, and 11PM on June 2nd. Please forward and share this with your friends, family, community members, and anyone in the medical field.

Great Book I Just Read

Johnny Got His Gun
by Dalton Trumbo

You may have, like me, read this book in high school. It’s worth another read. Written in 1959, the novel was actually written in 1938 and published just after the start of World War II. This is the story of Joe Bonham, a youjng American WWI soldier who is horrifically disfigured and disabled. Told only from Joe’s thoughts and memories, Joe slowly becomes conscious and then must decipher what is happening to him. He realizes slowly he has lost all his limbs and his face; how does he cope with this horrific realization? All he has left is his skin and ears as sensory organs; he struggles to control his panicky mind.

Memories of home and family flood him; he reflects on why he went to war. Trumbo has a message, one that not all Americans in these times may want to hear. But we grow as humans when we read what we don’t always agree with; the horror of war, its terrible human cost. It can be viewed as a book about war and its effects (think of the thousands of scarred soldiers returning now; for second year in a row, the US military has lost more troops to suicide than to combat in Iraq and Afghan) or simply about the strength of the human spirit and surviving unimaginable loss in any field, at any time. This book is worth a read, though there are problems with run on sentences, grammar, etc. Two stars.

Vacation in Wyoming

Laurie Kelley July 26, 2010

I’m on vacation this week in Jackson, Wyoming, one of the most beautiful spots in America; a real slice of the Wild West! I’ll be back next Sunday night!

Arizona Highways

Laurie Kelley July 27, 2009

I’m on vacation this week in Arizona, till Saturday, when I will give a presentation to the Hemophilia Association, Inc. (Arizona) in Phoenix. Until then, I’m enjoying the beautiful, breath-taking sights of Sedona and the Grand Canyon.I’ve done a lot in two days: jeep ride through the back country of Sedona; hot air balloon ride at 5 am this morning over Sedona, hiking through Oak Creek Canyon, visiting the Sinagua Indian ruins called “Montezuma’s Castle.” This is one of my top three favorite states; the history of the earth is permanently etched in the buttes and mesas. Sedona is known for its electromagnetic activity and has attracted all sorts of psychics and vortex seekers, spiritual advisors and healers. Fascinating! Tomorrow I have a helicopter ride through the Grand Canyon.

Till next Sunday!

We’ve Moving!

Laurie Kelley June 29, 2008

Short blog tonight; tomorrow is moving day. We are just moving locally, to a new office space to keep costs down on escalating rents. We’ve found a larger space in the CVS building in Georgetown, where we will be surrounded by professionals and nicer surroundings. All other contact information will stay the same: only our street address has changed to 65 Central Street.

I am putting together PEN this week and discovered a wonderful monthly newsletter that I think everyone should get and read: the COTT Washington Update. This is a document that speaks to me intelligently, about things that I don’t necessarily write about, so it makes for a nice compliment to our reading. You can check it out at www.cott1.org.

Our systems may be down for a day or two, but we will try to get back up and running as soon as possible; thanks for your patience!

Great Book I Read: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
This is one of those books you read and never forget. It is cited by many leaders, authors, therapists and life coaches. Frankl was a young psychiatrist when captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. The first half of the book describes life in the camp, and how differently people learned to cope with the unforgiving environment. He learns invaluable lessons amidst the pain and suffering and writes,

“The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Frankl’s ideas were also rooted in the beliefs of the ancient Stoics and as well as modern day existentialists. His basic tenet is that anyone can, even under such horrific circumstances, decide what he will think and feel, mentally and spiritually, and how he will behave. Attitude is choice, and our attitudes can help us survive, or die. He chose to give meaning to his suffering; his young bride died at the camp, and though devastated, but he did not let this loss consume him. It is up to us to give meaning to our lives, including our suffering. Frankl went on to found a new school of psychology called logotherapy. This is focused more on the present and future, rather than on the past. It recognizes that bad things happen, and then, helps patients find meaning in the pain to live more full lives. If you’ve read about the Elizabeth Smart case in People magazine last week, you’ll know exactly what Frankl is talking about. Read Man’s Search for Meaning. It gives hope that you can cope with just about anything and come out stronger. Four stars.