Feel Like A Number

I suspect that everyone living at The Hotel Carcinoma sometimes feels like a number. Soon after our check-in, we’re given a stage number for our cancer. We hear survival statistics. There are numbers for our tumor classifications and dimensions. We experience extended wait times in various departments of our cancer treatment centers that are reminiscent of our last visit to the drivers license bureau (“now serving customer number 64”). A sticker with our clinic patient number is affixed to every blood vial, tissue specimen container, and paper form or report our case generates; and even to us when wearing those lovely wristbands. And don’t even think about contacting the claims department of your health insurer if you’re not prepared to enter your group and patient identification numbers into an automated call answering system.

I wonder if I’ll be given a scanable bar code tattoo the next time I check into a hospital.

So each and every time a health care provider refers to and deals with me as a person with a name, rather than as the “needle biopsy in examination room three”, I really do appreciate the respite, however brief, from feeling like a case with a number. Fortunately, it happens quite often because it seems the vast majority of doctors, nurses and technicians working at cancer treatment centers are genuinely nice people who truly care about we patients. For most of these good folks, we’re people, not procedures. We’re names, not numbers. And for that, I’m thankful.

But for every medic who’s referred to me in my conscious and sentient presence as “the patient”, here’s the Hotel Melanoma rendition of Bob Seger’s “Feel Like A Number”…

See all music videos Bob Seger

I take my card and I stand in line
To see the docs I wait overtime
Feared collectors keep calling for the kale
I work my Black ‘til I’m racked with pain
Some docs can't even recall my name
I show up late and beat docs
It never fails
I feel like just another
Spoke in C’s great big wheel
Like a tiny blade of grass
In C’s great big field
To surgeons I'm just another mole
To tan shills I'm just ‘skin cancer’s’ toll
I'm just another statistic on a sheet
To preachers I'm just a face on aisle
To my Blue Cross I’m just another file
I'm just another lost census ‘til C’s beat

Gonna cruise out of C city
Head down to the sea
Gonna shout out at the ocean
Hey it's me
And I feel like a number
Feel like a number
Feel like a stranger
A stranger in strange land
I feel like a number
I'm not a number
I'm not a number
Dammit I'm a man
I said I'm a man

Gonna cruise out of C city
Head down to the sea
Gonna shout out at the ocean
Hey it's me
And I feel like a number
Feel like a number
Feel like a stranger
A stranger in strange land
I feel like a number
I'm not a number
I'm not a number
Dammit I'm a man
Feel like a number
Feel like a number
Feel like a number
Feel like…