Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Cancer, Debt and the Holidays

Even living in a country with socialized medicine, cancer debt is an unfortunate side effect of treatment, making holiday shopping a challenge


PUBLISHED November 27, 2018

A native New Yorker, Shira Kallus Zwebner is a communications consultant and writer living with her husband and three children in Jerusalem, Israel. Diagnosed in 2017 with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, she's fighting her cancer battle and blogging about the journey at hipstermomblog.com
Black Friday Sales this year came and went, and all I did to commemorate the biggest shopping event of the season was delete the masses of emails out of my inbox. Children’s Place and Target, Wayfair and TrueSelf Organics, sent their enticing messages to my inbox while my Facebook feed showed a steady stream of sales and specials at some of my favorite shops. No matter how many times I clicked to hide ads, a new sale from another store would pop up in its place. Even here in Israel, you can’t avoid Black Friday, as local merchants trying to peddle their wares adopted the biggest American commercial event to sell Hanukkah presents.
Lately, I just close off my radio and drive in silence.
When I started on my cancer journey a year ago, I was confident that living in a country with socialized medicine would mean not falling into cancer debt. That was pretty naïve thinking – or perhaps it was wishful thinking – that I would be able to do what seemingly no other cancer patient has managed to accomplish throughout difficult treatment: Keep up with my bills.

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