What does it cost to save a life?

I am pleased that WyoFile published my review of Katherine Standefer's nonfiction book, "Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life." In it, the author recounts her diagnosis of Long QT Cardiac Syndrome and how the cure can sometimes be as daunting as the ailment.

Standefer walks Planet Earth with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). It's a high-tech device about the size of a Zippo lighter (remember those?) that surgeons implant in a cardiac patient's chest. If that person's heart experiences irregular rhythms or stops, it shocks it back to life. As one research center noted: "It is like having paramedics with you at all times." 

Tiny paramedics.

Standefer playfully calls this intricate medical device her "titanium can." When we met online in November, she said, "Welcome, Cyborg." 

Surgeons installed my ICD in July 2013 when I was 62. Read my blogs about it here and here. 

Standefer is at least a generation younger than me. However, her cardiac problem is genetic and is a killer. 

In 2009, she was a 24-year-old college grad living in Jackson. She busily balanced outdoor jaunts, a budding relationship, several jobs, and performing in a local band. In what Standefer calls "the last morning of my first life," she passed out in a parking lot and was rushed to the hospital. After tests, a cardiologist said she had Long QT Syndrome and needed a defibrillator implant. If she didn't get one, she was vulnerable to Sudden Cardiac Death which is as final as it sounds. Problem is, she had no catastrophic health insurance for a procedure that could cost as much as $200,000.

This is when Standefer's saga began. 

“Lightning Flowers” explores two questions, Standefer told an audience during a Nov. 18 Zoom reading co-sponsored by Jackson Hole Writers Conference and Jackson Hole Book Trader. The first is: What happens to a 24-year-old who passes out in a parking lot and tries to access proper medical care? And the second: What does it cost to save a life?

First things first. Wyoming residents without means have few options for procedures like this. She found out that Colorado had an indigent care program for state residents. She made the decision to leave her life in Jackson behind and move back to Colorado so she could get the life-saving operation. She did, but there were complications. Once in recovery, she wondered about the second thing: what is the true cost of modern medicine? Her journey takes her to the California lab that made her device and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. She traveled to Madagascar and Rwanda. She interviewed miners and the impoverished people who lived with the poisonous byproducts of modern medical engineering. And then it was time to write the book.

The U.S medical establishment does one thing very well: research and development. New life-saving gizmos come online all of the time. I have an ICD and artificial knees. My diabetic wife is equipped with an insulin pump. During the Covid crisis, Moderna and Pfizer and others used new technology to develop a vaccine in record time. I received my first injection two weeks ago. I had a passing thought about all the materials the nurses used at the hospital. Syringes, vials, the medicine itself. Where does it all come from and where will it go? 

"Lightning Flowers" prompted me to ponder this question. Last night, the nightly news reported that people in developing countries are less likely than those in developed countries to get vaccinated against Covid. Some countries are raising holy hell about it and I don't blame them. It doesn't take much imagination to conjure a world war caused by lack of access to a cure for a plague. Countries that have vaccine supplies (looking at you, U.S.) are having a difficult time getting it into people's arms. One-percenters fly to places to get vaccine intended for the 99 percent, as in the recent case where a white couple traveled to the Yukon to get vaccine intended for elderly indigenous people. Capitalism at its worst. 

I am a First Worlder with insurance and access to miracle drugs. Millions of others do not have such an advantage. I aim to find out why and report what I find.

Meanwhile, read Standefer's book to trace her journey of discovery. Order a copy from your local indie store. Click the JH Book Trader link above.