Sign the petition at the Lifetime Network website, here.

Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Senators Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) recently re-introduced the bipartisan Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act in Congress. Thanks to its viewers, Lifetime has so far collected more than 23 million online petition signatures urging Congress to pass this critical legislation, which would end the practice of so-called “drive-through” mastectomies when women are forced out of the hospital only hours after invasive breast cancer surgery.

Help restore patient and consumer rights to breast cancer patients and their families:

• Sign Lifetime’s growing petition. Lifetime will continue to deliver the signatures to Congress and make your voice heard.
• Share your story. If you or someone you love has experienced a drive-through mastectomy, we want to know. Tell us in the official Breast Cancer Survivor community discussion.
• Call or write your members of Congress and ask them to support the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act. You may reach your member of Congress by calling the U.S. House of Representatives switchboard at 202-225-3121. To find your representative in Congress, go to: http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml.

Text from the email I received:

[A surgeon speaks:] “I’ll never forget the look in my patients eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drains, new exercises and no breast. I remember begging the doctors to keep these women in the hospital longer, only to hear that they would, but their hands were tied by the insurance companies. So there I sat with my patient giving them the instructions they needed to take care of themselves, knowing full well they didn’t grasp half of what I was saying, because the glazed, hopeless, frightened look spoke louder than the quiet ‘Thank you’ they muttered.”

A mastectomy is when a woman’s breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue. If you know anyone who has had a mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards. Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure.

Let’s give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery. This Mastectomy Bill is in Congress now. It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important. Please take the time and do it really quick! The Breast Cancer Hospitalization Bill is important legislation for all women.

There’s a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It’s about eliminating the ‘drive-through mastectomy’ where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support.. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below. You need not give more than your name and zip code number.

Thank you for your support and your patience with my off topic content of the last couple of days.