A Personal Experience: Healthcare System Failure

Let me set the stage for you. My defibrillator decided to save my life yet again, and yes I am thankful. It seems like it has become extremely active over the last several weeks, but life if always full of change. Some of you that have been following me know that my journey started at the age of 39. Crazy right? I was literally in mid-conversation and dropped dead, at 39 years old. I was active, coaching multiple baseball teams, acting as an executive board member for the baseball organization, but let’s be serious, nobody cares about those things.

It doesn’t matter what you do, who you know, or unfortunately what good deeds you believe that you have done. Unless, and let’s just be candid for a moment, we all know that there is favoritism, who owes who a favor, and most importantly – who greased the skids so that someone received special front of the line favor.

Not here to call anyone out specifically, but I read an article recently that talked about an athlete in the NFL that received a heart transplant. I am absolutely over the moon happy for him, but the system is flawed and rigged, if you can honestly sit here and tell me that favoritism and who you may know doesn’t play a part, you are part of the problem. I would welcome a conversation or someone to show me the statistical data related to this. I made it a point in my career to trust the data, because it always tells a story if left unmanipulated. Patterns will always form given time, I call it the soaking period, so make sure you do your homework before you weigh in. I have multiple patents on data behaviors, technical, and I am working on a few medical ones as well that doctors are participating in. Not sure if you picked up on this yet, but I am very passionate about everyone being given a fair chance at life. Don’t think that just because you have a medical degree, by the way, I am married to a doctor, whether you are a primary care doctor or a cardiologist that you have somehow excelled yourself above everyone else. I would personally welcome a conversation with anyone who sits on the “transplant board” that makes these decisions on Tuesdays regarding who makes the list.

I’m 51 years old and have lived an amazing life, I have the most amazing family and I served my country with pride. What I am doing here is trying to get the magnifying glass on the process by which selections and severity of the patients who need medical intervention. As someone who is living with advanced heart failure, there are things that I have just come to terms with.

The stories that I could tell you, the ones that my kids always love hearing and thing are hilarious. I spent 8 years in the United States Marine Corps traveling the globe and doing my job, as did my little brother, my oldest son, and my oldest daughter was married to a Marine. I’ve had some amazing times, getting detained in Japan by the police, being arrested in Mexico because of a bar fight, having my Marine brothers smuggle my little brother, who was is a Marine, across a U.S. border and then on to a U.S. military installation, sorry Camp Pendleton, but it happened. I can say that I have been arrested or detained in two different countries, but not inside of the United States. I say all of this to show that I am just a normal person who has lived a good life, that I am o.k. with the decisions that I have made.

I have the most amazing family that supports me, without hesitation, so that is what I am most thankful for. The system has to change and be more transparent. Insurance companies are the biggest criminals in the game, prove me wrong.