Category Archives: Mrs. Charm

Mrs. Charm’s good friend is set to begin a round of chemotherapy and radiation next week in her struggle with an unexpected cancer. I suppose cancer is always unexpected. So, too, was the cost of the chemo, alone, the poison that goes along with the burning radiation, to try to kill the tumors without killing the hosts, though it generally debilitates them awfully. So why are these people smiling?

Maybe because they’re getting paid. Six thousand dollars for the first round of chemo, at about a hundred dollars a pill. Luckily Mrs. C.’s friend can afford whatever her insurance doesn’t pay. I suppose this is a good argument for socialized medicine, though I doubt there’ll be as many choices once Barry and his cronies take us in that direction. But with cancer there’s not much choice, anyhow. You try to live a while longer, and some do succeed. Or you accept your dying sooner instead of later and at least depart in as near the condition of your old self as possible. For whatever that might be worth. I suppose it wouldn’t frighten your children as much as the husk you become from the treatments.