$400 a month

So what did I do for health care in the interim...good question george.
Since I left the Daily Star in Tucson, I have paid $400 a month to Cobra for continual coverage. Oh yeah, that first payment was $800.
Months of coverage included my one blood draw back in September.
The Cobra people are merciless. If you're a day or two late on payment, they threaten to halt your coverage. As if any patient would be late on a bill if she or he could help it...but the folks at Cobra feel the need to state at the bottom of every bill: "If payment is not received by the last day of the month, coverage will be cancelled and will not be reinstated if late payment is received."
Since I ended coverage, they continue to send me paper work.
Though I'm glad to be out of their grasp, I'm sure it won't be the last time I deal with Cobra.
We need a new order when it comes to health care in this country.

got my health care!

hola hola hola
After working three months for Dean Singleton (the L.A. Daily News), I now qualify for health care benefits.
Within a day of the paperwork appearing on my cluttered desk in the newsroom, I filed everything with the human resources folks. Then I hounded them to get me my passwords and identification numbers and whatnot.
Now that I'm covered under Anthem Blue Cross, I have my choice of literally thousands of oncologists in the L.A. area to visit. That's about all the website gives you.
But I can't tell one from the other, though I've a list of two oncologists with a background in urology.
now what?
I've called my old oncologist, Dr. Fredrick Ahmann, and asked for a recommendation. I've also left a message for Adrian to get his oncologist.
I'm due for a CT scan and blood test.
There is nothing inviting about the health care industry.

Consuelo Aguilar

Read more about Consuelo.

This column was written by Roberto Rodriguez last week in the Tucson Citizen.

Rodriguez and his wife Patrisia Gonzales write the Column of the Americas.

Latino Fest III with another survivor

Sometime around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, I surveyed the situation.

hundreds of punks were piling through a narrow door and out of a community hall on the corner of Whittier Blvd. and 10th St. in Montebello. Greeting them was a small phalanx of police officers anxiously gripping their batons and passing around riot helmets. a helicopter was circling overhead, spotlight shining down on the scene, ordering us away from the hall.

immediately to my right was consuelo, who only 24-hours earlier, had been vomiting uncontrollably at the veterans hospital in Loma Linda. A few feet away young nate was snapping photos of the police with his i-phone.

I'd be lying if I said everything was calm. I was expecting a riot. an officer was roving the street with a shotgun in hand. i couldn't tell if it was loaded with pepper spray balls, wooden doyles or worse. in anticipation of pepper gas, I handed consuelo my bandanna and instructed her to dowse it with water and cover her mouth. a lesson I learned from the 2000 DNC protest. I wandered over to nate and gave him the same warning. then I wrapped an extra t-shirt around my neck and put some water on it.

it was consuelo's first punk show. it's now legendary. it would've been Crudos third reunion show. the night was nearing the hotly anticipated headlining hour when police arrived.

Just a few days earlier, consuelo had begun radiation treatment for her cancer. that's why she'd been throwing up the night before.

I never had radiation treatment. however, both paul and adrian went through it. in fact, paul was at the same place where consuelo is now being treated.

but I did go through chemo. and I can say there's no way I would've ventured to a punk show, muchless a crudo's reunion sure to draw hundreds of people, a few days into treatment.

Consuelo is tough like that.

nate and I had spent the afternoon with her family at their little rented cottage just a few blocks from the hospital in Loma Linda. I jokingly mentioned joining us at the fest. she had planned to go to the son del centro show I was at the night before, but her sickness kept her home. not long after I mentioned the show, she got up from the couch and disappeared. I started to wonder where after i hadn't seen her for about ten minutes. then she emerged from her bedroom, changed out of her comfortable sweats and in an all-black outfit that included a black skirt with the silhouette of a zapatista along her waist.

five hours later, back at the show, nate and I, separately wondering to ourselves how we were going to explain to her parents taking their patient daughter to a show that erupted into a riot not far from the spot where Reuben Salazar had been murdered by police decades earlier.

thankfully it never happened. but I'm glad she came.

here's to the new face of cancer survivors: consuelo aguilar

So much more to life...during Chemotherapy!

Chemotherapy can leave us with many different feelings -- what to do ? what to do? Depending on how each of us feels it is important that on the "Good" days, we grab the time to do things that make us feel good. I love massages and acupuncture. I set up appointments for massages, facials, and acupuncture sessions. I even had a manicure and a pedicure. I frequently went to Bloomingdales and went to the MAC counter and had the technician help me with makeup ---I lined my eyes, used color to pop my eyes, got make-up, blush and lipstick and the result was startling.


Although I tended to wear black and grey, I used my head scarves to bring color to my wardrobe. Remember, this is what I did when I felt "Good". Those days usually came at the end of the treatment period....right before I was scheduled to get my next chemo treatment. So, just as I was feeling and looking good...that time was here. But I was ready for the good days that would happen in about five days..


I found that the chemo cycles went like this: chemo......sick.......start to feel better.....feel good....next treatment and then the chemo cycle started again. With each chemo session the time of illness grew and the time of feeling good got reduced. But I want to remind all of us...there are options to feeling miserable and your arsenal of positive actions should be ready. Write a list of what you will do because believe me...you won't remember what to do as you are leaning into the toilet bowl. By the way, use a basin when you are nauseous and not the toilet bowl. Why you may ask...The reason is we deserve better.

Keep a record of the things you can do when you feel good. Have everything ready. Have a plans for when you are feeling sick..........remember eat white food! and stock up on ginger ale or cola. Find what makes you feel better and have it all ready. Arrange where you will sleep or sit...plan how each day will go and then using all your God given strength....move on. The day you finish your treatment............sleep and rent movies for the times you are awake. And don't move your head too much. You and I both know that what I have written does not apply to everyone...but what I am trying to tell you is BE PREPARED!
"You are a child of god and a special person."Course in Miracles." amf




I have always fought being called a CANCER SURVIVOR. So many of my friends

all good

this morning, before heading into the Daily News office, I called UCLA and lab by lab tracked down the results of my blood test from Sept. 26. took about twenty minutes of getting passed around, retelling my story and writing down a handful of different phone numbers.
the results were faxed to Tucson this morning. Dr. Ahmann's folks made sure to tell me so.
Just a few minutes ago, Ahmann's people called to say he had inspected the results and everything looks good.
hopefully I'll have a new oncologist for the next test -- which will also include another CT scan, as it has been four months since the last.

missing blood labs

Less than a month since my first blood draw in L.A., i haven't seen the results.
so i called my oncologist in Tucson. Turns out neither have they. they never received the results.
but UCLA was quick to collect their money.
The first bill arrived within a week of the blood draw.
so now i need to track down my results.