A Great Loss In Patient Advocacy

This is well overdue, but on March 22, 2013, Arijit Guha of PoopStrong.org passed away. He passed peacefully in the presence of loved ones. His wife has memorialized him beautifully in her own post on the Stage IV Hope blog, and I hope you will take the time to visit. It takes immense strength to stand by the side of someone you love while they suffer. Arijit was not only an invaluable patient advocate, successfully combatting the higher-ups at Aetna in a tense Twitter show-down, he was also a loving husband to a loving wife.

I have never met Arijit or Heather, but in following their story and through my brief e-mail interactions I find they have both set the standard for bravery and strength. Please do take some time to read through Stage IV Hope. Together they faced fear with love instead of anger. The world is a better place for having had him in it.

Poop Strong Takes It To Twitter

A few months back I blogged about a 31 year-old PhD student who has gone medically bankrupt while battling stage 4 colon cancer. Arijit is still fighting the good fight, and man did he bring it to the folks at Aetna yesterday! One follower, Jen Wang, was kind enough to storify the entire exchange, which I encourage you to check out. Health insurance is a maddening industry in this country, and Arijit has done a great job calling Aetna out on their hypocrisy and the ways they've failed him as a patient. Even though I'm lucky enough to have one of the better insurers around, having to make every professional decision in life based on whether or not I'll have health care has been a huge hindrance to my life's goals. The conversation about Big Insurance and coverage denial is an important one, so go read the thread already!