By Nick Jacobs

It was September of 1974 when my 57-year-old father’s cough was diagnosed as a lung cancer. He had stopped smoking 14 years earlier, and none of us were totally cognizant of the ramifications of his working as an attendant at a service station or of wrapping our furnace pipes with asbestos paper each year, or smoking Kent cigarettes with asbestos filters, or living in the path of dust patterns from winds from Los Alamos. All we knew was that a great father had been given a death sentence.

Ironically, our 74-year-old neighbor was diagnosed with lung cancer on the same day. The health care paths that these two very different men from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum pursued in their destination to death are notable and ironic.

My father did everything available to mankind in 1974-75 to arrest this disease and regain his life. This meant surgical removal of the lung, radiation, chemo and lots of morphine. He spent 18 months in hell with metastases to his spine, kidney, and finally the other lung. It meant unbearable pain and total disruption to life.

It was during the 18-month journey from his good health to horrible death that we had our first real experience with the healthcare system. It was a world that was cold, sterile, insensitive and parochial. It was like entering a negative control pressure chamber where questions were unanswered, rudeness was the norm, and no one knew or was willing to find out what was going on at any given moment. A total lack of control of the system was the norm for us. And, unfortunately, near the end, it only grew worse as death; the ultimate failure in modern medicine, was obvious.

As my father’s health deteriorated, we were all stunned by the lack of care that he received. We were crushed by the lack of sensitivity demonstrated toward either the patient or the family. And once it was clear that his death was imminent, the healthcare providers began to avoid the room. They began to avoid bathing him and to avoid speaking with us. It was a horrible journey into a system that, 30 years ago was well funded, well staffed and even then was on its way to becoming one of America’s largest employers. Unfortunately, nearly 30 years later, many of these realities still exist.

Our 74-year-old neighbor, on the other hand, had no health insurance and decided to have no treatment for his lung cancer. After living comfortably at home with his entire extended family surrounding him through 18 months of nurturing, loving care, he died. The two men, Charlie and Murph died on the same day.

My father went through the torturous treatment provided by the healthcare system. He was cut, poked, prodded, poisoned, radiated, drugged and ignored.

We nearly depleted our family savings trying to be near him, attempting to stay by him at the tertiary care center two hours from our home.

Charlie and Murph died on the same day. For my dad Charlie, no clergy was available. No counselors were available. No social workers were available. Murph had it all. He died bathed in the love of his children and grandchildren, and unhampered by attitudes of unhappy caregivers, overworked physicians trained in the white coat world of high tension, high stakes medicine.