Ask HN: I Have Cancer. What Should I Do?

I heard someone say that health care is completely provided in Australia for about 2% of your gross pay because the leeches have been removed from the process ... is this true?

P.S. Leeches = anyone that inserts themselves into the process without adding meaningfully to the quality of care provided.

Think of it this way: that they hire someone else who thinks they're healthy doesn't guarantee they're hiring someone that stays healthy. In fact, they might just think they're healthy because they're less cautious and end up in a much worse spot than you.

Life happens. If the company is not equipped to deal with that, it's not your fault. It's part of running a business.

Besides, most of the problems we're talking about here are related to the shitty American healthcare system, not the business itself.

First off, don't care about other people. There is no reason to think about what effect it might have on your employer, or who gets screwed when you make certain decisions. If you end up dieing because your treatment sucks, you won't need to feel sorry. You really need to be selfish, the stakes are too high not to be.

That aside, what you said sounds very similar to what I had. When I was 15 I also discovered lump under my armpit, ended up being Hodgkin lymphoma. If that is what you end up having, you should be extremely thankful. First of all because if you need to get a cancer, that is the one you want (at least that's what they told me). But also, in this endeavor, you are probably the lucky one. At least in my case, the worst part was seeing what it did to my mother and brother. I knew exactly how good/bad I felt but they could only guess at it.

As to what to do, well this varies significantly from person to person. Some people I met in the hospital wanted to learn everything about the disease, why it occurred, what they could have done to prevent it, how they could of discovered it sooner, ... Other people socialized a lot in the hospital and talked to each other about chemo side affects, ... For me this all seemed like a waste of time since in 8 months or so I would be a "normal" person again. I tried to keep my life as close to normal as I could. I got to the hospital and left as fast as I could, continued to go to as many classes as possible, kept doing the same hobbies, meeting friends, ... So I would suggest, just do whatever makes you happy =).

Anyway, hope this is somewhat useful. Good luck!

America pays more per capita for their health system, and yet here's this guy struggling to know if he's going to be treated or not.

Cancer is a disease of mostly older people. They get treatment via medicaid / medicare. That "socialised" health care distorts US spending to the diseases of old age. It's certainly not US insurance that pays for that cancer research.