Paying for Treatments With Good Deeds

The immunotherapy I'll be taking (Ketruda/pembrolizamab) will cost $12,500 a month, and the treatments continue, I think, until it doesn't work or the side effects become too tough to take.  When faced with such costs (absorbed by you, my fellow taxpayers) against the three-quarter century that I've already lived and the unlikely possibility that the drug will actually be a cure, if I were a really good person I would go gently into the good night without imposing such a financial burden on society.  Instead, I'm perversely excited about the therapy. So, given my reluctance to leave this existence before first becoming one more economic tick, I resolved a few days ago to spend the rest of what life I have by Doing One Good Deed a Day.

The NPR program on TED Talks covered extreme altruism recently, with one of the researchers investigating people who donate kidneys to strangers. I decided this probably wasn't me yet.  For one, cancer patients are unlikely to be good organ donors, and, anyway, I wanted to build up slowly to extreme altruism.

Good Deed Day 1.  I never write thank-you or sympathy notes on actual paper to send out by snail mail, but I very much enjoy getting them from the few people who do (my older sister, a couple friends).  With this in mind, I bought three fairly costly boxes of Crane's notepaper several months ago. The first note I intended to write was to my terrific radiology oncologist and his nurses thanking them for the wonderful care they gave me last summer during my treatments.  The boxes sat on a table without expressing any gratitude or sorrow until Christmas, when I realized I could give two of them away as gifts.  This left only one to generate guilt rays. So, when I started my good-deed life, the first obvious deed was to finally thank the radiology staff. (I could have sent plants or a fruit basket, but they get that stuff all the time.  Nothing says thank you—literally—more effectively than a carefully crafted note.)

Unfortunately, I rarely write in long hand anymore except for signing an incomprehensible signature on the supermarket credit card terminal, so my handwriting has quietly deteriorated over time into an unbreakable Morse Code. Nevertheless, this was the only first good deed I could think of, so I persevered.

I typed out the letter first to use as a final copy that would not require any inky word changes.  I then placed a piece of paper flush against the sides of my note card to create a straight edge across it, serving as a guide so my sentences wouldn't drift up and down. Then I painstakingly scrawled what I hoped would be legible gratitude.  As I expressed effusive thanks to my doctor and his staff, I realized the note was going to be too long.  I left out a couple of charming but irrelevant sentences, and, even so I had to strangle the final line into tiny letters, with my signature riding up the right margin.  Then when I reread it, I saw that I had repeated one word twice, which I inked out in several cross-hatched layers until it was black.  It wasn't the best-looking thank you note in the world but it was done.

Later, Michael and I went out to lunch, and I told him to stop at the mailbox outside the post office and drop off the note.  It had been snowing the night before and he couldn't quite reach the slot.  The envelope fell onto a dirty hump of ice leaning against the mailbox. He opened the door and retrieved it.  The back was wet.

"It's not going to dry," He said.  "You'll have to redo it."

"No, I can dry it!"  I frantically blotted the envelope several times on my knee. 'It's just the back.  The front is fine.  I'll leave it in the car while we have lunch.  It will be fine." There was no way I was going to write this again. I left it on the seat.  When we returned from lunch, the note card was only slightly damp.  We drove by the mailbox again and this time the envelope fell safely inside, to be delivered in a few days to what I was sure would be the surprise and delight of the entire radiology oncology team. Good Deed #1 Done!

Good Deed Day 2.  Called an old friend whom I don't speak to very often because she talks far too long.  I spent an entire hour listening about minor problems with her car.

Good Deed Day 3.  Cooked at the Salvation Army, which I do anyway two days a week. I figure this will let me off the hook for coming up with a brand new good deed on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Good Deed Day 4. I was able to connect two young women together by email who recently moved upstate with their husbands.  Both are feeling isolated and looking for friends. I had been intending since summer to host a dinner for them and another couple, but things kept coming up.  They've now communicated and set up a date to get together, so I think that counts as a good deed.

Good Deed Days 5-15 (except for Tuesdays and Fridays). Have been distracted by weather, doctor appointments, various local Democrat meetings (possibly count as good deeds?), dinners with friends, and binging on the latest Great British Baking Show episodes.  Plan on starting good deeds again tomorrow or the next day…