Red Flag Hero

I had dinner with an ER doc last week, a friend, who told me that she’d recently diagnosed a patient with cancer in the ER. Patient was a stay-at-home dad between health insurance plans. She was upset because she wasn’t convinced that he would have the courage, the money & the knowledge that he would need to get the life-saving follow-up care he needed to see his kids go to college. She thought it was possible that he might eventually decide that his wife and kid would be better off if he were dead instead of ‘driving their family into debt for his treatment.’ Because of this tiny, niche community I’ve found - I had ideas. And when I explained a handful of viable options for affording care & navigating the process specific to his particular case, She was speechless. Shocked. She had no idea that there was a parallel universe being created in real time to solve issues exactly like this one. She didn’t know because almost no one does. How many people are sitting contemplating horrible, horrible tragic things because they don’t even know what they don’t know? Solutions exist, but we’ve already given up. We’ve given in to a system that is too expensive, too complex & too overwhelming to navigate -so much that suicide seems like a ‘reasonable option’ to an ER DOCTOR. It’s a hand that no one deserves, but most (even the insured) find yourselves in. And while the stories that I hear are heartbreaking, solutions are everywhere.They go counter to the narratives that we’ve been taught since childhood, and they require us to take ownership and responsibility for what happens to us, but they are waiting patiently - poised & waiting for us to grab hold. My only goal in publishing RFH is to make you aware of the power that you already have over your own body and your own health journey. The power that I know you aren’t using only because you don’t know how yet. I want to share everything I’ve learned so you don’t have to live without hope. Join me.