Michael Timothy Danforth died because he didn’t have health insurance.  Photo courtesy of the Danforth family.

By Leslie Boyd

Every year in America, some 30,000 people die prematurely because they don’t have health insurance and the access to health care that comes with it. Last year, one of those people was my son.

He was at high risk of colon cancer because of a birth defect, but he couldn’t get a doctor in Savannah, Ga., where he lived, to give him a colonoscopy. Several times, even as he began having symptoms, the doctor wrote in his record, “Patient needs a colonoscopy but can’t afford it.”

The symptoms got worse, but he still couldn’t get the test he needed to catch his cancer early enough to cure it. By the time he got help, Mike was in renal failure and vomiting fecal matter. His cancer was Stage 3, and the prognosis was not good.

He got chemo and radiation, but the radiation caused another blockage and he was neglected and nearly died again. The pathology report from the surgery showed a few viable cancer cells, and his doctor told him he would die. The doctor didn’t even treat a life-threatening infection that developed after his second surgery.

We got him a consultation at Duke University Medical Center and the doctors there adopted him and fought for his life as hard as he did. They gave us two more years with Mike, but the cancer had progressed too far for a cure before it was discovered.

Mike died April 1, 2008. All because the patient needed a colonoscopy but couldn’t afford it. If he’d had access to health care, we’d still have Mike and his wicked sense of humor, his practical jokes, his gourmet meals, his hauntingly beautiful black-and-white photos, his music and his passion for helping others.

Mike is just one of 30,000 people who died last year. As he lay dying, I prayed my heart would stop when his did. But my heart kept beating, so I have to do something with the pain I feel every moment of every day.

In his memory, his former wife (they had to split so he could qualify for Medicaid) and I started Life o’ Mike, a health care education and advocacy nonprofit. We are working toward access to quality health care for every American.

I’m afraid it’s still going to be an uphill battle, but Janet and I, and the others who have joined in this fight, are very stubborn people. We’re not going away.

Leslie Boyd is a writer with the Asheville Citizen-Times and the mother of the late Mike Danforth. For more information about the work of the organization, and to help with its drive for healthcare reform, visit online .