When I found out that the error was R.P.’s fault, I called Georgetown Medical School. The operator very kindly gave me R.P.’s home telephone number. I was hopeful. It seemed simple. R.P. could just say he made a boo boo on my record and Blue Cross would relent. So I called him.
“Hi, R.P.” said I. “This is Suzanne White. Remember me? New York Hospital last July?” (It was nearly October by this time.)
“Oh yes, Suzanne. I do recall. How are you?” said young R.P.
“Terrible. You wrote something in my hospital record that Blue Cross used to cancel my insurance policy.”
“Really? That’s not possible.” He said.
“It’s not only possible, R.P., but you did it. You even signed the form.” I said.
“Wow. I am really sorry.”
“It’s not enough to be sorry, R.P. You have to write a letter to Blue Cross and cc: me and New York Hospital on that letter. And you have to do it right away. I am on the verge of starting one year of chemotherapy. I need my insurance back. I haven’t got the money to pay all these bills that the hospital is sending me for everything from the operations to anesthetists to x-rays and blood tests and surgeons and medicines. I just don’t have the money.” I explained.
“What do you want me to say?” asked young R.P.
“Just write and say that you made a mistake. Tell them that I did not have cancer before. That I had never had cancer. Explain that you wrote down something that wasn’t true by mistake.”
“Oh I couldn’t do that.” R.P. told me. “It would ruin my medical career.”
“R.P.,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “if you don’t write that letter to Blue Cross, you will be ruining my life and my children’s lives. I will lose my house and my career as an author will be over as well.”
