After the rough weather, discouragement about health care reform, government in general and budget shortfalls, I find myself feeling hopeful.  It’s a good time for hope.  Last week I helped host Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz at an event for GWEN (Get Women Elected Now).  She is smart, funny, down to earth and a breath of fresh air.  Lowell Feld put up several video clips on his blog, which you might enjoy.  I especially recommend the crayon story, which is the third clip. http://www.bluevirginia.us/2010/03/debbie-wasserman-schultz-health-care.html The congresswoman is a reminder that there are good, young leaders moving up in our Congress.  And some of them are women.

Then on Saturday, I attended one of the first Coffee Party parties in Shirlington.http://CoffeePartyUSA.com The Coffee Party was started by a young woman, Annabel Park, who was frustrated at the Tea Party movement and the lack of civil discourse in our public debates.  It turns out she’s not the only one and the Coffee Party is taking off.  About 50 people showed up at Busboys and Poets, until there was no room to sit.  There were a few activists and folks like me, but mostly it was a diverse group of people who simply believe government should work for people and that we need to be civil when we talk about how it should do that.  The preamble to the Constitution was read.  There was lots of discussion and an effort to put what we believe onto a few short slogans for signs.  I’m not sure where it will lead, but it was truly hopeful to see so people not only sincerely concerned about their democracy, but feeling there was a way they could help.

Here I’ll give a short rant about the press and democracy and Fox News.  Fox News especially seems to be increasingly willing to lie or bend the truth to advance an agenda that, to me, seems to be about anything but making our democracy stronger. I watched with dismay as it become increasingly popular.  It’s been heartening to watch Rachel Maddow call them on their work lately.  It was good to read Howell Raines in the Sunday Post on “Fox News: unfair, unbalanced, unchecked.”  I hope this is all a sign that there finally will be some significant pushback to Fox News and similar reporting that pretends to be unbiased and honest, but is misleading those who watch and listen.  Democracy depends on an informed, educated electorate.  

Closer to home, it looks like the Virginia budget cuts for K-12 will not be quite as bad as feared.  And my colleagues on the County Board are raising taxes in part to cover the increase in school population for Arlington.  While it looks like our per pupil cost will be back to about 2006 levels when we finish up our school budget in April, I think we will be able to maintain the quality we’ve all come to expect in our schools.

Closer yet to home, spring brings some family birthdays, including Owen who just turned 3.  It’s hard to stay discouraged when one has beautiful and thriving grandchildren.  And the first crocus has appeared by my front door.

I hope my readers also feel the change in the air and wish you all a good Saint Patrick’s Day.   Libby 

As my readers know, Kennan was an organ/tissue donor and my family’s experience with that process has helped ease the pain of our  loss.  I hope Frank’s post below and Kennan and my experience outlined in the article that appeared in the Post last year will encourage readers to discuss donation with their loved ones.   Hopefully it will remain an academic discussion for my readers, but, if not,  our experience has shown that grief is eased by knowing your suffering has been able to help others.—Libby

by Guest Blogger Frank Sietzen, Jr.

In today’s America it is a silent epidemic affecting nearly ten percent of the population. In the African-American and Latino communities it is an unseen and little discussed shadow that shortens life spans and careers, complicates lives, and destroys families. I’m talking about kidney failure and the consequences and complications it brings.  In the greater Washington, DC area kidney disease in adults is 24 times the national average, evading medical science’s understanding of the cause. Is it caused by Diabetes, or hypertension, or obesity? Whatever the reason, it is a disease without a cure, leaving only three avenues for the patient. One is trice-weekly dialysis, done in a clinic or hospital; the other a similar treatment done by a smaller machine at the patient’s home. Ultimately, though, the best solution for failing kidneys is to get a new one, either from a friendly donor that matches you, or from a cadaver whose kidneys become available.

There is, though, just one problem with this: and that is the demand for matchable and working kidneys far outstrips the availability. The great question, it seems to me, is why? In America, unlike Europe, the public looks queasily upon organ donation. The complex system of registry offers donors no subsidy, and a living donor is subjected to a week’s worth of tests that must be done here at the hospital that is to conduct the actual transplant operation. Depending on where the donor lives, the cost of a week in a hotel room plus the cost of airfare to get here and the lost week of work all quickly adds up. And people wonder why more don’t donate? Even the process of making your organs available after death is complicated. So until the system is reformed, and some remuneration created to entice donors, people like me must wait years for a cadaver’s matchable kidney. There is one option available to virtually everyone that can vastly increase the pool of donors. When you renew or get a driver’s license in the Commonwealth, there is a check off box in which you can list yourself as an organ donor. Painless, simple and easy. Why more folks don’t take advantage of this is a mystery to me.

Some two and a half years ago, I submitted to the process that leads to my name going on the transplant list. I spent most of a day getting poked, prodded, and having 12 samples of blood taken for analysis and registry. Once completed, a potential recipient is rated based on the genetic composition that makes a match easy or more difficult. The easier you are, the easier it would be for a cadaver to match you. Then each year a stress test is done to make sure I could survive an operation. And every month, I must take and send to the hospital that is my primary designee for the operation a sample of blood. All of this stuff is up to me, the patient, to do. In my case, I had two friends who wanted to donate a kidney to me. One was found to have cardiac problems, and thus eliminated. The other discovered that he had kidney problems himself, previously undetected, another case for elimination. So I wait, and wait, and wait some more. At this rate, I’d even accept a Republican kidney!

The only consolation is that there are hundreds in the same boat as me here and thousands more across the country. Until a way is found to increase donations, help people understand that there are easy ways to become donors after your death, or provide some system of compensation for living donors, hurry up and wait is the tune of the day.

Frank Sietzen is a journalist, speechwriter for NASA and co-author of New Moon Rising about the Columbia accident.   He was my campaign manager in 2008.   Frank is also one of the thousands of Americans who must receive kidney dialysis treatment three times a week or face death.  He hopes to receive a donated kidney soon.  I’m pleased he has agreed to write occasionally for this website about his experiences and thoughts on the health care debate.—Libby

by Guest Blogger Frank Sietzen, Jr.

Imagine if you will this scenario: You are alone in a darkened landscape where nothing is familiar and where there are no stars or guideposts to help you navigate. Every time you think you have reached stable ground, it shifts beneath you, requiring that you quickly learn new terminology, procedures, and make choices that could change your life and your health. To understand your predicament, you are bombarded with information coming at you from every imaginable source, whose reliability and accuracy isn’t always easy to discern. And the end of the day, it’s solely up to you to implement these new ideas, products and technologies into your lifestyle while at the same time keep a watchful eye out for complications and side effects which lurk around every corner. Some days you feel able to navigate this terrain, but on other days your mind and spirit may be too tired to barely do the basics to keep you safe.

Sounds like a place you’d like to visit?

Welcome to my world.

I am one of the estimated half of the adult U.S. population –that’s 150 million Americans-with at least one chronic illness. And I am also one of 26 million Americans with End Stage Renal Disease, the final and irreversible step in kidney failure. A few blocks from my home in Arlington, I visit a medical clinic three times each week. There, a machine the size of a small filing cabinet is keeping me alive. To compensate for my malfunctioning kidneys the machine removes and cleanses my blood, returning it to my body in a process called hemodialysis. I must endure this treatment-shared by more than 75,000 Americans every year-until I receive a transplanted kidney. Since that wait in our region is more than five years, that machine has become my new friend.

And I have been introduced, however reluctantly, to the American health care system, in all its glorious strengths-and weaknesses. Given these circumstances, health reform is to me more than a matter of headlines. While I am fortunate to have a good commercial health policy, I wake every day with the prospect that, given my condition, here in Virginia it could be canceled at any time, with no court of appeal. True health reform that lowers costs of policies and strengthens consumer protection is greatly needed. But right now, the legislation is bottled up in Congress, thanks to our Republican friends looking out for the insurance industry. 

Should we fail to seize this moment, future trends are stark. According to the Congressional Budget Office, health care costs will account for 25 percent of GDP by 2025 and 49 percent by 2082, if we do nothing. That would condemn millions of future patients like me to a health care system that will be increasingly inaccessible and unaffordable for most Americans. What a tragedy it would be to say we faced the call for reform and answered “no, we can’t”.

So keep re-electing Jim Moran in the House and Senators Webb and Warner. And please continue to support the President’s call for reform. Life on dialysis is made liveable for me by my work as a writer and my involvement in political campaigns like Libby’s recent campaign for School Board, and other ways to strengthen the Democratic Party. Because if it is reform we need, then it will only come from Democrats!