Anger Management

In as much as I would love to tell the world that we cancer survivors are a tough breed filled with determination and optimism I have to acknowledge that I would only be telling you a portion of the story in doing so. To survive this experience, you and those around you will need to summon every ounce of strength and courage available and even then, the effort will fall short on several occasions. What few people like to admit however, is how much anger you'll encounter. That avoidance stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of anger. It isn't a negative emotion. It is a fundamental recognition that something is wrong. Something unjust or unfair has occurred and it needs to be righted. But what do you do with it?
I channel my anger toward fixing my problems. It motivates me to aggressively seek out a better, fairer, more empathetic way of living. It reminds me that there are no problems in life, only undiscovered solutions.

As a journalist I frequently engage in the public spectacle of the great Canadian health care debate. It doesn't matter who you ask, everyone has an opinion and like religion or politics, health care should probably top the list of things not to discuss over the dinner table. But my profession requires me to ask questions, to explore angles and to polarize issues. As it turns out, my choice of vocation compliments my nature which is to be inquisitive and often outspoken. So let me now take you to my journal entry, just a couple of days before my surgery to remove what I still believed was a benign tumour in my jaw...

July 15th, 2009:
As I head into my surgery to have this silly mass of tissue removed I can't help but be angry and amused at the same time. I know this event has become quite the spectator sport on Facebook so I thought I'd milk one final ounce of pity from the experience and reflect on what's happened and what it all means to me.

First, I have to talk about my experience with our healthcare system because as a talk radio host that subject always makes for good argument fodder. To be blunt, the Canadian healthcare system falls well short of universal healthcare and those who think we must protect it at all costs to avoid a two-tier system are missing the point. We already have a multi-tier system but it's not working as effectively as it could because provinces and doctors still compete with each other for business. Procedures that miss wait-time targets in Ontario are easy to find in Quebec and vice versa however the practice of cross-border referral is strongly discouraged and in some cases doctors can be fined for doing so. So there's a wealth of MRI's in Montreal but a complete lack of joint replacement capacity and the reverse is true in Ontario. Just one example.

In my case, diagnosing my ailment required a CT, an MRI and a biopsy. Each exam required a three-week wait and had I not diligently phoned the hospital and clinics in question on a daily basis it would have taken far longer because I was "forgotten" on several occasions. Once I was able to make an appointment I was rarely seen on time and in most cases waited at least two hours which calls into question the purpose of making an appointment. After the tests had been completed, I was able to consult with my doctor and it was very clear on each occasion that the clock was running. In no way did I feel that I ever had a chance to fully digest all the information I was given or to ask all the questions flooding my head. I'm still unclear on some of the procedural issues of my surgery and have resorted to finding my own answers on the internet. I don't feel as though I'm well-informed about how my recovery will proceed once the operation is done. My confidence in the system would be significantly stronger if only my doctor could spare an additional 10 to 15 minutes. But I don't place the blame on his shoulders because there were dozens of other people just like me waiting for their appointment and he needed to see them as well.

The fault lies in the system. We don't have enough doctors and nurses, we all know that. But now the provincial government has made things worse by implementing wait-time standards. Counter-intuitive as that may sound, hospital staff are now functioning on quota. Quantity has replaced what shred of quality our over-taxed system still had and details are going overlooked. Important details. Life-altering details. And the patient has little or no recourse.

So I'm angry. I'm angry that to begin with, I have just about the most pointless illness possible. A benign mass growing in my face that will ultimately kill me for no good reason. There's no nobility or honour in that. It's not comparable to the situation a firefighter faces upon suffering an injury sustained while saving someone's life. I can't identify with a soldier who was injured while protecting the freedom of others. It's just a big stupid lump in a terrible place forcing me to make a spectacle of myself. But worse than that, I'm angry because the system which is meant to be a cornerstone of Canadian culture has reduced me to a nameless statistic. That which we claim to cherish so deeply has been broken for such a long time and we're all in denial. I have no doubt that I'll get responses to this note defending our system and all its merits because that's how entrenched the model has become in our national identity. Travel the world and look at how other countries are mixing public and private health care and how it hasn't resulted in two levels of care, but rather two systems that compliment each other. The current Canadian healthcare system coddles hypochondriacs and punishes those with valid illnesses. It sets unrealistic targets for doctors and nurses forcing them to compromise their standards so politicians can score points with style-over-substance wait-time registries. It wastes billions of dollars maintaining a model which stopped working years ago because the people of this country are too stubborn and ignorant to realise there's a better way.

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That's where my head was a few days before my surgery. To say I had some anger issues would certainly qualify as an understatement. To summarily disqualify those issues because they were raised in anger would be unfair. When I read this blog post today, it makes me realise how much I still had to learn about our health care system and how well it does work. I also realise that there are legitimate problems, some of which I identified, and we should continue a dialogue with all involved to improve our system because at some point it will touch all of us. Mostly it made me realise that I have not only an opportunity, but rather an obligation to use my position to raise these issues, to maintain the debate, to give a voice to the voiceless because complacency and ignorance is the real enemy.
The experience taught me to be my own advocate and to demand that my questions be answered. It also taught me to thank the wonderful people who work in the system who truly care about their patients and give their very best each and every day to help us through some of the most challenging periods we've faced.

The experience taught me to use my anger to learn, to grow and to think beyond my own perspective. It made me stronger. Your anger can do the same.