Watching the Netflix Harry and Meghan

Tyler Perry's right. They're smart, talented, classy people who have been through more than their fair share of troubles.

Douglas Murray, Megyn Kelly (who called them "Kardashian 2") and Piers Morgan--whom I tend to agree with on other issues--are so wrong I want to knock their heads together. The indignation in Kelly's biting comments, the superciliousness in Murray's, who thinks Markle is lying in the Oprah interview, the ranting jealousy emanating from Piers Morgan, are dismaying. Of course, Murray's real target is cancel culture; a British actor's career was destroyed when he said he didn't think Britain was that racist.

Amazing what a Rorschach test this series is. The complaints usually center around the notion of privilege--as if being rich and famous protected a person or was even enjoyable. I watch these lives and think "how golden my anonymity!" 

I admire the work Harry and Meghan did for the royal family and the work they're doing on their own. The two of them are morale-boosters with tremendous energy. They are visionaries: they want to make the world a better place and they go to town making their dreams come true.

The part of the story I hadn't known--the part Murray, Kelly and Morgan don't buy, but I do--is the palace intrigue. Meghan and Harry got too popular and had to be taken down a peg. Somebody did this. Leaving "the firm," I take it, is a bit like leaving the mafia. Takes a lot of work to survive, what with the helicoptors overhead, the men in cars or boats surrounding you, the barrage of hate tweets.

But I'll let the triumverate who dislike her present their argument, which is, essentially, "you don't like the heat? Stay out of the kitchen." In other words, all royals put up with egregiously intrusive lying publicity, so just suck it up.

Yes, well. There's a grain of truth in there somewhere. But Harry pointed out that the race card many papers were playing (the photo of a couple with a monkey in a suit labeled as Prince Archie coming home, for instance) made it all worse. 

What these two extraordinarily talented, hard-working beautiful people missed--if they did miss something--was the absurdity of the flat-out lies, the hate mail, and the insulting photographs. There is something absurd about media attention. I'd hate it too if it was in my face all the time but unlike people in their twenties, thirties, I find more things amusing. The piles of money made by invented stories, the things people believe--it is all absurd. There's something to laugh at there. Even Princess Michael's blackamoor brooch. Out-of-touch, tacky, just awful--but not something to be resolved with laughter? Isn't it more "can you believe people felt that way? Can you believe she's wearing that? Can you believe she doesn't get how ghastly that thing is?"

Can you believe somebody didn't take Princess Michael aside (the way you would someone who's tucked her skirt into her underpants) and removed the brooch with a few kind words and an "I'll explain more later?"

The death threats, however, tipped the balance. They are not absurd, and from those I believe the palace could have done more to protect Meghan. 

Fame eats people alive. The urge to escape wars with the urge to set the record straight, the urge to tell the true story. I think that's what these two young people have done.

What those who love Harry and Meghan and those who love to hate them seem to agree upon remains that they're really in love. They really are. I can see that, and their marriage reminds me of my own. There really is love like that. It really is great. 

But if what you see up on that screen contrasts with what you're telling yourself you have, or understanding you don't have--I can see how you might hate them. Romantic bliss is something real, but rare. It's everything, and of course it's to be envied. 

Health Providers, Politics, and Cancer Patients in Germany

If you're imagining--as I was until about five minutes ago--that you'd never be turned down for an essential medical treatment in generous Germany, you're in for a shock.

My oncologist is apoplectic--as am I. The treatment is, natürlich, eye-poppingly costly (around 9,000 euro per infusion) but there are women right here in Germany getting their fortieth infusions. Every three weeks.

Without it, I'm on a standard chemotherapy causing un-appetizing side effects, most of which I won't list, since they'd turn your stomach, but but one of them is exhaustion and another is a sort of miracle ageing effect; I have a gray buzz cut, sallow skin, and saggy eyes giving me the expression of a serial killer or a grumpy grandma, depending on the light and my degree of fatigue. 

The miracle drug--never mind the name; they all have names sounding like Disney princesses or space aliens--usually doesn't cause side effects and works much, much better than the standard stuff. 

Tecnically--ah, that word fueling bureaucrats!--what I'm asking for is listed as "off-label" for my condition, but the insurance company and the pharmaceutical companies and the European Medical Agency and the lawyers and just everybody knows the stuff will be reclassified as standard within three months. 

So the insurance company wants to avoid the three months and then have to pay for the next zillion months? Because yes, folks, that's what the stuff is likely to give me. 

That kind of time is a big change. Oncologists are a like drug dealers: they sidle up, show you the box of the very latest cancer pills, and whisper, "This'll give ya another five years." And it does! It really does!

But then you have your routine CT scan after five and a half years, and your oncologist thinks it'll all be smooth sailing, but a new metastasis appears and then--"here's this other great new stuff that'll give ya another five years!" At the end of which it has continued to work for many women. If not, the new stuff in the pipeline often does.

If the insurance company will pay. And they can. Most clients aren't in the middle of expensive illnesses. There's only a few of us, and hey, I work and I pay taxes and I provided the German state with three kids who are solid citizens, terrific students and working hard toward their university degrees. 

So the company can afford me. I'm worth it. Pony up the dough! 

 

P.S. Have been trying to reply to the last comment on resources for U.S. women needing Enhertu and there's some glitch. My reply: There's no compassionate use program planned for Germany. (Or, I believe, Europe).