Medical care here or in the US

As some of you may know, I have prostate cancer and will soon be undergoing chemotherapy.

Before anyone asks, I'll be getting the treatments here in Honduras.

Several times people I know as well as the doctors have asked me about going to the US for treatment. Usually, the question was breached by asking me if I have medical insurance in the US. I answer that I don’t have medical insurance in the US since I am in the US at most a few weeks a year. 

I don’t expect to just fly to the US and get medical care. I am seeking medical care here since this is my home.

In a sense, this is a way to share with my neighbors, though I do have many privileges and advantages that they don’t have.

First of all, I do have the economic resources to have high quality treatment here – I get Social Security payments and a tiny pension (from teaching at Iowa State University); I also have a decent amount set aside in an IRA (Individual Retirement Account). In addition, several persons have offered financial assistance. 

 But I recall that most of my neighbors would not be able to get this type of care in a private clinic and would have to depend on the public hospitals or do some serious fundraising. How many times I have seen people collecting money, even stopping cars on the roads, to try to help someone with major medical expenses.

But to just get up and fly off for medical care doesn’t seem right. I want to be here among the people I know and love.

One relative on learning of my illness sent me an urgent message, telling me to come home. But this is my home. I didn’t respond to her in this way, respecting her real concern for me. But it’s what I think and feel. 

And I am at peace with this decision. Of course, I may change my mind in the middle of the chemotherapies. But now I am at peace and want to stay here – where my heart is.

I hope and pray that this experience may open me deeper to the needs of mys sisters and brothers here.