Thread by @VABVOX

Spent the evening with my sister packing up The Wife's medical supplies for donation. My scientist niece found us a place that can use them that would also make The Wife happy--American Ukrainian Relief Association.
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#TheWife

The surgical supply place wouldn't take them back and credit her account. They weren't covered by her health insurance because apparently having a tracheostomy is a whimsical thing. So now,hundreds of dollars of supplies will get used by people who need them. What a relief.
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I needed to get the medicalization out of here. The Wife hated it every second. She hated the trach, hated the complications, hated all that was entailed in the daily care. It was torture the last week of her life. She was so brave. I miss her bravery. I miss all of her.
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We really have to do better for sick people in America. I have no idea how The Wife would have managed without my help. I'm not sure how I will manage without her help. We were just one couple. 1.9M people will have been dxd with #cancer in 2022. How are they all managing?
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39.5% of Americans will be diagnosed with #cancer in their lifetimes. I've had cancer, both my parents died of cancer, my best friend had cancer, two previous partners died of cancer before they were 50. And now my beloved wife. Why aren't we doing more about this??
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Think about how 39.5% of Americans is 132.8 MILLION people. When I'd write about The Wife's #cancer journey, the threads were filled with folks with cancer or who had loved ones with cancer. WTH--why aren't we fixing this? So many new and rare cancers, too. Like The Wife's.
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As a reporter, I try to make sense of trauma by getting to the bottom of the story. Why wasn't there a test to find The Wife's #cancer? Why is so much cancer found in later stages, like hers? Why are there so many environmental cancers? Why so many kids with cancer?
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I did this investigation after a close friend died of lung cancer. Not one thing has changed in the couple years since I wrote this. WHY NOT?
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The Deadliest Cancer for Women Is Not the One You Think
damemagazine.com/2018/12/03/the…

And when are we going to do something about the survival gaps between #cancer in Black and brown people and white people? We don't even talk about this. I've been writing about it literally since the 1990s and no changes. Why (IYKYK)?
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Black people have the highest death rate/shortest survival of any racial/ethnic group wrt #cancer. Black♀️ are 41% more likely to die of breast cancer than ◻️ women even though their incidence is lower. I can't make sense of The Wife's death. But I can fight for others.
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