Well then...as I am sure we have all seen in the news lately--things are a little off lately but I am trying all I can to keep it together and take the steps I have needed to take to ensure that I have some hope for an actual future. I have been a bit shell-shocked seeing and recognizing exactly how lucky I am after reading a lot about other people who have been not so fortunate--people who haven't made it through one surgery--and some who made it through but got leveled another way. I suppose this fire has been there but a lot of it has not been cathartic but catastrophic--meaning focused on the destruction or what was missing over what was there.
Now--I still argue this country is not a place a person like me will get a fair shake, and that is obviously to be expected given we do not have an umbrella of healthcare to help those who can help themselves like I have tried to do. Now, when I did have medicaid and medicare for the very small (I am talking less than 2 years out of the last 24) time period I did have it, there ...
So, I do write about this often enough through social media means---but people who have had these kinds of illnesses--dissections, heart surgeries, any number of events that could catastrophically devastate your body--we are lemons. Now--it doesn't mean we are sour or unable to be good, but lemons in terms of monetary value. We cost the country money. As I have said before, if you want proof of a person's monetary value, do a credit check on them. In the United States that is our sole means of measure and unfortunately for many of us, this lemon status means we won't have things through normal or average channels. I am a lemon and I have had millions in dollars in medical bills over the past 2 decades that I certainly was unable to pay. People mention to me this idea of payment plans like you can be on payment plans for a few hundred thousand dollars each time. NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN. Now, how do I get away with throwing bills away? Well, I have no assets, thanks to this disease. I could never own a thing (they will take what you have away if you don't pay)--I went into adulthood ...
We just got back the other day--it appears that the signs of a better life do exist in other places. Don and I spent a great deal of time in Amsterdam this past week and I can tell you there is something beneficial to going to a country which used the US model, but with vast improvements. As the originating democracy, ours emerged out of something but never evolved to accommodate modern life and concerns quite like these guys seem to have managed to do.
There was a different kind of spark in that city--and it is not quiet, but certainly doesn't seem to be Vegas either, as I guess both he and I were prone to think. There's emerging pockets of culture all over, and better yet, the ability to buy an apartment for really nothing compared to the past several neighborhoods I have lived in--and there is the reality of what is going on with pre-existing conditions to contend with--if they do what they are going to do, it would mean if you do have employer coverage, you better never quit that job because no way no how will they allow you on without a pretty lengthy grace period ...
