The stories that do (it’s Christmas)

During this year, there are many people who have written to me telling me your stories every week. First of all, a huge thank you for creating this dialogue, for taking the time to write and for continuing to feed it week by week. Since this is the last one newsletter 2024, and with permission from their authors, I share with you some of the stories that have arrived in my inbox in these weeks.

This is the story that Salvador told me: “I am 73 years old and at the end of 2023 I went to my family doctor at my health center in A Coruña. I went because I had a persistent cough that wouldn’t go away. In the consultation there was not my doctor but a substitute doctor who, when she was listening to my back, saw a mole, very small, by the way, which she said she didn’t like and made an appointment for me to see the dermatologist. After a month or so, I went to dermatology and the doctor, after looking at the mole carefully and asking the opinions of other dermatologist colleagues who also saw it, decided that it had to be operated on. 15 days later, in February, I had surgery and the result of the biopsy was that it was a melanoma with inward growth. A month later they operated on me again and the result was negative.

Now I undergo a review every three months and the professionalism and good treatment, personal and emotional, that I receive is worthy of praise. I wrote to the Health Council to congratulate the family doctor who detected my melanoma because thanks to her good eye I am convinced that she saved my life, since finding this mole on my back probably when I would have had symptoms of cancer would be too much late. A 10 for public health. And my infinite gratitude.”

And this is the story that Jesus sent: “For years I have been having an annual checkup to control my cholesterol. In December 2018, the nurse who usually treated me saw something strange in my blood tests, I was low on red blood cells and referred me to the doctor. She asked me for a repeat once three months had passed, also looking at the iron levels. Since I was very low in both, he referred me to a digestive specialist.

I had an endoscopy and colonoscopy. In the latter, they detected quite advanced colon cancer, even though in 2018 I had tested negative in a stool test. They operated on me and gave me chemotherapy. In subsequent follow-ups and twice (2021 and 2022) they detected metastasis in the lung. Return to surgery and chemo. And here I am still. In the last check they did not detect anything suspicious.

I wonder what would have happened without the “clinical eye” of the nurse, now retired. Well, I don’t wonder, a few months after I was also diagnosed with colon cancer in a co-worker, but a little more advanced. “It lasted six months.”

That we are tired and worried about waiting lists in public health is a bit of our daily bread. In old school journalism it was said that good news, not news and while I was writing this newsletter I have known another very tremendous saying that I had never heard. It’s about the same: if it bleeds, it leads (in Spanish it would be something like if it bleeds, it sells). I disagree quite a bit. Call me softly naivebut we need good news and complementary stories to the boredom and criticism (always necessary) of things that are not going well. Journalism is, above all, about controlling power, but it is also about – and nothing is exclusive – about other things.

So I cheer up, skipping all the deontological codes (it’s Christmas, I know):

During the medical examination at the beginning of this year, the doctor noticed a mole that had appeared on the palm of my hand. He told me that it was an unusual place and that I should watch it in case it grew. I mentioned it to my family doctor at the health center without giving it much importance (I was very small) and, since the dermatology lists were so long, she took a photo of it and sent it to my reference hospital to speed up the time. Three weeks later I had an appointment to remove it. It turned out to be a very localized and superficial melanoma that required a second intervention to make sure everything was clean. And so it was. I will never thank my doctor enough for that photograph and for her quick and decisive action in the face of the slightest suspicion.

While you were doing other things…

Is it solved?

We have been raw with the Muface conflict for more than a month. It is now, after having bowed to the insurers’ demand to increase the premium per patient, that the Government thinks it is beginning to see the light. Ending private healthcare for civil servants suddenly would have been a major challenge. A good move to start 2025. Although Adeslas has already said that he does not care about the premium increase, which does not occur; The other two companies, DKV and Asisa, have until January 15 to decide whether to apply for the contest with the new conditions.

In these days when it seems that things are on track but nothing is confirmed, I spoke with three officials who are part of that figure, the million mutual members, which we have repeated until we get tired in the headlines. They are three people with pathologies or problems of different types for whom a possible change (even if they are in favor of going public) right now represents extraordinary anxiety.

I finish with a song to dance (I apologize in advance). Happy new year. Health, love and beautiful things for everyone.

Sofia.

#stories #Christmas

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