[fauxgypsy]

I have to say that I was disapointed in the show. I was hoping for something with a little more meat to it. I would have liked to see more about the breast cancer survivor's and the rocker's experiences. I feel like the show lived down to its title. There were some poignant parts but it seemed to me and my friend like a continuation of the actress's childhood movies and her career.

I would really like to see some films or news that feature people like many of the women on this board who have lived through years of treatment and all of the indignities and pain and still smile. Women who don't have celebrity, big money, or power backing them up. women who had to fight to get their treatments. Women who have had to struggle because they don't have insurance, women who are single parents who struggle to pay their bills and keep their children fed, all those brave women that I have met or whose posts I have read. The ones that have lost friends or spouses because they just got tired of deaking with a person with chronic illness. and they still smile.

I have been one of the lucky ones so far, and I am very aware of this. I was unisurable but I got Medicaid through the Breast and Cervicle Cancer screening program, our small house is paid for, and at the moment we have no car payment. I have been able to work some and sell some art work. I have salable tallents. But there are so many people out there who do not have options and no one is telling their stories. It is a lot easier to upbeat when you know how your going to feed your family, when you have someone to depend on when the going gets really rocky. I can turn on the tv at almost any hour and find some story about a poor person in another country who isn't getting the health care they need but in our country we want to put a rosy spin on everything. Yet in our own country we ignore the employers who make up reasons to take away the jobs of cancer patients, we turn a blind eye to those who are unisurable, who work for companies that are too small or too greedy to provide benefits, much less the salary to buy them on their own. But I sat there and watched people learn how to stuff wheat grass juice where the sun doesn't shine and no one on screen even laughed. One of the women I talk to occasionally lost her job recently, she has a mortgage and is in the middle of treatment. Another was told by a large chain store that has flexible scheduling that they couldn't work around her radiation schedule and so she lost her job. Cobra is all well and good but only if you can afford to keep it.

I almost wrote an apology for being on my soap box but I am not going to. These are much more real issues than macrobiotic diets and wheat grass cures. I know that we would all be better off if we ate better diets but when a gallon of milk cost close to an hour's wages, olive oil and fresh veggies are not the priorities.

Leslie