Elf Awareness
In the weeks before Thanksgiving, my family was in a collective funk, with news of my health getting generally more grim, a lot of tough decisions to make, and the normal craziness that comes with the last two months of the year.
One night, tired, possibly depressed, we gathered for family night, which for us usually means movies and takeout Chinese food or pizza. We began discussing what movie to watch–what do you choose when you’ve just learned about your probable demise–and we all agreed that we needed some sort of pick-me-up. No tearful drama or intense action/adventure film. No nail biting suspense or disgusting horror film. No, we needed a comedy.
“How about Elf?” I asked.
It wasn’t even officially the “holidays,” but everyone agreed that Elf was the perfect choice. I mean, the film is chalk-full of laughs and great one liners. Plus, here’s a guy (Buddy, played by Will Ferrell) who’s eternally joyful and optimistic. That wouldn’t hurt. Besides, we owned our own DVD copy, so we could pop it in at a moment’s notice.
Fifteen minutes later the movie was going, and our mood was improving with each passing scene. Laughter, they say, is the best medicine.
Elf is an underrated film. Some think of it as another silly Will Ferrell comedy, like Anchorman or Taladega Nights. But it’s much more than that. It’s also part drama, part romantic comedy, part fish-out-of-water story, part coming of age tale.
Plus, it’s good and so darn quotable. I often find myself borrowing exclamatory words and phrases from the film, like ginormous, that’s shocking, son of a nutcracker, very sucky, and cotton-headed ninny muggins (an Elf synonym for total idiot). If LeAnn and I are overdue for date night or it’s dinner time and we haven’t bought groceries, I might ask, “Do you want to go eat food?”
Longer phrases are a bit harder to work in to conversation. But if I’ve been eating too many holiday treats of late, I might say I’ve been ”trying to stick to the four main food groups: candy; candy canes; candy corns; and syrup.” Or, if someone comments about our holiday decorations, a Christmas poem I’ve written, or a card or present we’ve sent, I’m apt to say that it’s “nice to meet another human who shares my affinity for elf culture.”
Other lines from the film come in handy during parenting. If the kids are fighting, I might remind them that ”there’s room for everyone on the nice list.” If one of them has decided to forego showering for a couple of days, I can say “you smell like beef and cheese” without being too mean. Since teenagers aren’t known for being overly touchy-feely with parents, I can get much further if I accompany my attempts with some Elf logic like ”I forgot to give you a hug” or “tickle fight!” And if one of them appears to be stretching the truth, I can give them a deeply concerned look and say, “You sit on a throne of lies.”
Other lines from Elf are useful for everyday life when you need to recalibrate a lousy attitude. What better stay positive reminder is there than to begin each day with a “smiling’s my favorite” attitude? And when things are going wrong at the end of the year, you can pick yourself and those around you up with this thought: “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!”
The bottom line’s this. Elf is a feel-good film that’s useful during feel-bad times. I want to stop being so tired, grumpy, and cynical. I want to be the kind of guy who believes when I see a store advertising the ”world’s best” cup of coffee. Like Buddy, I want to respond by stepping into the store and saying, ”You did it! Congratulations! Good job everybody!”
I’m Just a Bill
When you’re dealing with a serious illness, it’s the little things that can send you over the edge.
Oh, you might be able to handle the mounting stress relating to children, medical appointments, tough conversations, disrupted schedules, the strain on relationships, even the overall sadness of it all. But then you have to deal with something like a medical bill and you lose it. Words you never dreamed of saying burst forth from your mouth like aftershocks from an earthquake.
Fortunately, I have good health insurance. And with chemotherapy running at about a $70,000 per month clip (I kid you not), my family would be sunk without it. Bills come in at a staggering pace, and somehow, some way, most of them get paid.
But every now and then, one slips through. And that one bill can cause more stress than you could ever imagine.
For example, I have this bill right now that’s driving me nuts. I’ve spent hours upon hours attempting to resolve it. I’ve written letters. I’ve made at least fifteen phone calls. And despite all that work, I’m no closer to resolving it.
The circumstances behind the bill are maddening in and of themselves. I was having surgery at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. My insurance, through the State of Oklahoma, had approved this surgery and was treating it as an in-network expense. (This is one of the few benefits of having freaky rare cancers, like I have.) That’s good, because out-of-network expenses are akin to having no insurance at all.
Anyway, on the night before surgery, my son Ford came down with a horrible sore throat. Having no local doctor nearby, we got him some over-the-counter meds and hoped for the best. But as the night wore on, things were looking grim. Ford couldn’t even swallow.
The next morning my wife and I got up at 5 a.m. and headed over to the hospital. LeAnn waited until I was admitted, then rushed back to the nearby hotel room to check on Ford. He was in awful shape, but ibuprofen and water would have to do. LeAnn then rushed back to the hospital and waited for me to get out of surgery. The moment she received word that I was still alive, she sent our daughter Maddye over to wait on me to get out of recovery, then hurried back to get Ford to a doctor.
LeAnn had no idea where to go. But M.D. Anderson is in Houston’s medical district, and there’s a hospital on just about every friggin’ corner. So she chose one. I don’t want to name it here, but let’s just say it hypothetically rhymes with Saint Duke’s.
It was a quick in-and-out visit to the emergency room. Ten minutes with a doctor and a strep test, which proved negative. That’s it.
A month or so later, we received the bill. Actually, it was two bills, one from the hospital and one from the doctor. The total? One thousand bucks. (As I’ve said many times before, “Yikes!”)
Then, a couple of weeks later, we received an explanation of benefits from my insurance company’s “third party administrator”. They’d only paid $32, because the charges were out of network.
I called my insurance company to complain. They should treat these bills as “in network,” because we were in Houston getting surgery that was being treated as “in network.”
“You’ll need to file an appeal,” the tired voice on the phone explained. “And attach all the bills you have.”
So I did. But I first called the hospital and doctor to let them know that there would be a delay in payment due to a dispute on the bill. They noted this for the file. Then about a week later, they began calling my wife’s cell phone at work, urging her to pay her debt. This led my overworked, overburdened wife to urge me to “take care of this!”
It gets worse of course. The letter in response to my appeal came back, indicating that the bills had already been paid. That is, by paying less than fifty bucks on a thousand dollar bill, my insurance company had satisfied their contractual responsibilities.
“They didn’t even read my appeal letter,” I told LeAnn. “Or else they didn’t understand it.”
I wrote another appeal letter, explaining why this was wrong and again attaching all documentation I had. Then I called the third party administrator to voice my concerns.
A tired voice on the other line explained that the rejection was standard procedure. “We’re going to need to see the medical records,” she said.
“What medical records?” I asked. “It was a fifteen minute visit to the emergency room for a strep test! Says so right here on the bills. What other medical records could there be?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But we’re going to need ‘em.”
“But why?” I, the lawyer, asked. “You’ve already made payments on these bills, thereby admitting they’re legitimate. Why would you need anything more? It’s nothing but added bureaucracy!”
“Sir, I understand your point, but it’s standard procedure. If it’s out of network, we’re gonna need the medical records.”
“Well, have you asked for them?” I asked. “I mean, you have the phone numbers right there on the bills.”
“That’s the patient’s responsibility.”
No need to tell you any more of this conversation. It was like talking to a brick wall. A very tired brick wall.
I then called the hospital to explain why they still hadn’t been paid, to urge them to stop calling my wife at her middle school, and to order the medical records.
“I can’t get you the medical records,” the lady at the business office explained. “That’s another department.”
“You’re in the business office and you can’t get medical records from your own hospital?” I asked with skepticism in my voice.
“Uh-huh. And why are you calling anyway? If your insurance company needs documentation, they should call and ask for it.”
“That’s what I told them, but they wouldn’t do it!”
“They just don’t want to pay for the records. I mean, someone’s gotta pay before we just up and send a bunch of records.”
“Well, there shouldn’t be anything but a page or two,” I assured her. “It was less than fifteen minutes. A strep test. That’s it.”
“We still need to get paid.”
“Listen, can’t you just call my insurance company and work this out?” I pleaded. “Why do I have to be the middleman? Like I’ve got nothing better to do. I’m dying out here. Literally.”
“Sir, we don’t call the insurance companies. They call us.”
She finally gave me the number to medical records. I waited a day or two before calling, in order to compose myself.
“Sure, we can send those records to your insurance company,” the cheerful voice on the phone said. “But we’re going to need your written authorization first.”
“Okay… And how’s the best way to get that done? Can you email me a form that I can print out and fax back to you?”
“I sure can,” said Miss Sunshine.
She then obtained my email information, and we hung up. That was four days ago. I still haven’t received an email.
“You still haven’t taken care of the Saint Duke’s bill?” LeAnn asked.
&$%@#$!@?!!!
Run Away!
Four days after I was told I have “months, not years” to live, my kids ran away from home.Let me elaborate. My kids, seventeen year old Maddye and fourteen year old Ford, didn’t “run away from home” in the normal sense of those words. My wife and I knew where they were, eventually. We were in communication with them, via cell phones, texting. They didn’t flee because they were mad at us, in the way a defiant ten-year-old packs a few items and heads off to a tree house until it gets dark or his or her stomach starts growling.
No, they ran away because they were in grief, scared about their future, unable to process the probability that “dad” will likely be leaving them soon. They left because they’d discovered the hard truth that bad things happen to good people-or, in my case, fairly good people-and there’s nothing they can do about it.
Here’s what happened. Last Tuesday, we set off for what should have been a normal day-normal that is for a family dealing with cancer and terminal illness. My wife left for work at 8 a.m., heading to the middle school where she teaches. I set off to visit with doctors in Oklahoma City in preparation for my twentieth chemo session scheduled for the next day.
When I left, the kids were getting ready for school. They’re both in high school, by the way, and drive together, usually leaving at about 8:30 a.m. We said our normal goodbyes and have a great days. Nothing particularly ominous was looming on the horizon.
I got home early from work that day, at about 4:30 p.m. It had been a long day of speaking to friends and coworkers about our latest round of bad medical news. The kids weren’t home when I arrived, but that’s not so unusual. They often grab a Coke after school and don’t get home till after five.
My wife was scheduled for her yearly mammogram that day and wasn’t supposed to be home until late, probably 7 p.m. Tired, I sat down to watch some television coverage of the upcoming election.
At 5:20 p.m., I heard the garage door opener. Good, I thought. The kids are home.
But as I went to greet them, I saw my wife sitting in her car, talking on the phone. She had obviously been unable to keep her scheduled appointment.
Oh crap, I thought. Something’s wrong.
I immediately called Maddye, who answered on the second ring. “Hey,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Ummm, at Grannies.”
“Funny,” I said. “Where are you?”
“At Granny’s,” she repeated.
I was unable to process, much less believe, this information. Granny’s house is two hours away, near the Oklahoma/Kansas border. I wasn’t even sure Maddye knew how to get there.
“Seriously, Maddye. Where are you?”
“At Granny’s. I left you a message.”
“Okay… where’s Ford?”
“He’s with me.”
“So, let me get this straight, you guys drove to Granny’s after school?”
“No. Before school.”
“You skipped school?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. That’s just great,” I said before I could stop myself. “That’ll make our lives easier!” Frustrated, I hung up the phone.
But later, after my wife and I had had the chance to talk to each other and to Granny, after we’d taken some time to process what had happened, my attitude changed. We came to realize that our kids had simply felt compelled to act, to do something, anything, in response to the unfortunate and unfair turn of events that had invaded our lives.
“I don’t want to go to school,” Ford had told his sister. “I’m too sad about Dad.”
And so they skipped town. They hadn’t gone out and gotten drunk. They hadn’t turned to drugs or meaningless sex. They didn’t vandalize someone’s property. They hadn’t hurt themselves.
They had instead turned to each other. Hurting deeply, facing challenges few teenagers have to face, they had decided to leave their grief behind, if only for a day or two. Together, they drove to their beloved Granny’s house, for there they felt safe and loved. There they could breathe.
And even more importantly, perhaps, at Granny’s house, they could open up and say some things they’d been unable to say to us, face-to-face. It is difficult, if not impossible, to take on the grief of someone you love, especially when you’re dealing with your own. So instead of opening up to LeAnn and me, who were both struggling, they told Granny how they were feeling. And then, later, after that bridge had been crossed, they spoke to us on the phone, with the safety of many miles between. This took some of the pressure off, for the moment at least, as they let us know of their sadness.
As a result we had meaningful conversations about grief. We discussed how we should allow ourselves some time each day to be sad, but then how we should put away the sadness till the next day, thereby allowing ourselves to experience whatever joy that particular day had to bring. And we cried, of course.
And so, all things considered, I’m glad my kids ran away that day. It allowed us to come together as a family, to refocus, to let the kids’ teachers know what was going on, and to learn. Their act was not one of defiance, but one of survival. In some strange way, it provided hope, hope that no matter what happens to me, at least they’ll still have each other.
Are You Sure?
When the folks at the Oklahoman asked if I wanted to participate in this series, I had no quick, definitive answer. Before I could say yes or no, I needed to know exactly what I was getting myself (and my family) into.
But when I met with the “team” to discuss the project, it became clear that we were all embarking on something of an unknown mission here. The underlying assumption in this series is that I’m terminally ill, dying of cancer that has metastasized to my liver and lungs. And so, unless something miraculous happens, it is unlikely that I’ll be here in a year. The Oklahoman believed my journey was a story worth telling, a story that could be helpful to other people who are facing such a crisis.
But how do you do that? Death is a taboo subject in America–and not particularly holiday-friendly at that. How do you tell that story in a meaningful way? And why choose me? After all I’m certainly not the first or last to walk this lonely road.
As for the “why me,” I guess the Oklahoman felt I was uniquely situated to help tell this story. After all, I’d written a memoir in 2006 on the subject of living with cancer, entitled I Survived Cancer, but Never Won the Tour de France. Also, half of my latest poetry book, Antidotes & Home Remedies, dealt exclusively with health. Plus, I’d written for newspapers and magazines for years.
And as for the “how do you tell it” dilemma, the Oklahoman thought it best to tell the story from many angles. Senior writer Ken Raymond and photojournalist John Clanton were assigned to follow me around. Ken would write stories for the paper, and he would blog along the way. John would tell the story through videos and photographs. I would submit daily blogs, joined by my wife and kids from time to time. And my good friend Charlotte Lankard (who helped make this series possible), a therapist and Oklahoman contributor, would also submit blogs.
When I began telling my friends about the project, they all asked the same question: “Are you sure?” That is, am I sure I wanted to be this revealing, to have a reporter and camera guy following me around everywhere, to let it all hang out? And, more importantly, was my family ready?
Well, we’ve discussed that issue a lot and here’s what we’ve decided. Rather than just cut ourselves off from everyone and feel sad about what was happening, we had the chance to turn something bad into something good. Maybe, just maybe, we could tell our story and other people facing similar issues would realize that they are not alone. Maybe, just maybe, we could participate in something that is bigger than we are, something that could somehow make a difference.
With that goal, we march on.
