Dear Crisis Intervention of Houston (Carbon Copy to the White House)

Source: JEZEBEL

Crisis Intervention of Houston is proud to be part of a new effort to help save lives through a partnership with the National Suicide Prevention Line Network (NSPL) and the White House.

In January 2009, the Obama Administration initiated a process for the public to voice concerns directly to the White House via email. This resulted in an outpouring of emails from thousands of individuals whose concerns ranged from financial and food assistance, to medical insurance. Some of the individuals who contacted the White House expressed thoughts or threats of suicide. 

In response to the influx of calls, the White House asked NSPL to provide follow-up calls to individuals identified as potentially suicidal. As the Region 6 Center for the National Suicide Prevention Line, Crisis Intervention of Houston is providing follow- up telephone calls, emails or mail to potentially suicidal individuals identified to be living in Houston or the surrounding area. 

Crisis Intervention of Houston is assisting in this effort by contacting these individuals and conducting a suicide risk assessment which requires some detective work and lots of patience. CIH's work is part of a progress report made by NSPL to the White House every week. 

We are proud to partner with NSPL and the White House as we continue to reach out to people in crisis and provide the kind of support that saves lives.

This may be the most humiliating post I've ever had to write.  But I do have to write it.  It is one of those truth-telling days.  The sun is out.  I conquered my phone phobia and called my Mom.  (Yes, I know, it is more of a Mom-Calling Phobia than an actual fear of the technology.)

I do need to say, in defense of any jerkiness in writing, or thought, that my left leg, hip, and lower back, are all conniving against the composition of this post.  There is screaming -- rhythmic, short bursts, nothing arduously continual -- involved, as the Spaz Attacks laugh in the face of 40 mg of Baclofen, 8 mg of Tizanidine, and a Kroger Diet Ginger Ale.

I am a true fan of President Obama, and of many of his policies.  We could do a rundown, but if you're a Dear and Dedicated Reader of this obscure and odd blog, that would be the height of boredom.

Yes, I am trying to avoid what needs saying.

I write the President, and with excessive frequency.  Possibly with excessive openness, perhaps with insufficient deference.  Weirdo that I am, I consider him a friend, especially in the middle of the night when the pain is winning and all of Marlinspike Hall snores in blissful slumber, from the few country mice in our myriad cellars and crags whistling midst dreams of artisinal cheddar wheels, to the Holy Abbot Truffatore, hiding from the heavy duties of his office at the Cistercian monastery, our closest neighbor, snoring with blessed abandon.  If I listen hard enough, sometimes even the muffled snuffling of the Crack Whore napping alongside the whispering waters of the moat reach my hyper-vigilant ears.

What better time to write the President of the United States?

Maybe it was the letter where I chastised the university system that studiously underemploys its many "adjunct," "visiting," and "assistant/associate" professors, denying them not just the oft-discussed tenure but the rarely referred to basic benefits of employment -- a living wage, access to health care, that kind of piddly stuff.

Yes, I bet it was THAT letter that did it, that put me on The List.  I probably said something like: I have deferred my plans for suicide because my brother Lumpy, the Professor, was diagnosed with an evil cancer, already metastasized, the bastard, dastardly enemy!  He had not had enough funds to purchase insurance prior to President Obama and Friends' pushing through the Affordable Care Act and setting up the MarketPlace.  So, by the time he had affordable health care... no thanks to the university for whom he'd labored like a slave for over 25 years... his first doctor's visit came with the ominous pronouncements of "tumors, masses, MRIs, referrals to oncologists." Just months before, he'd made his first ever visit to an ER, only to be treated as a drug-seeker, and told he probably had a rotator cuff injury.  Right.  Make that Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma.

So, it was probably that letter that set off the "suicide" risk alarm button in the White House Reading Room, where every letter to the President is closely perused.

Though it might have been any of the letters that tried to explain the frustrations of a "rare" or "orphaned" disease like CRPS, and the idiocy those of us with it are forced to confront in an often futile effort to get help.  I might have used the old chesnut of CRPS being known as "The Suicide Disease."

In any event, the dread telephone rang this morning, after the second night of Screaming Ninnies and ineffective 100 mcg Fentanyl patches, Percocets, Baclofen, and ibuprofen.  The ultimate proof of failure, and pain's triumph?  It bust down the gates of music -- It ran through Ben Harper, The Decembrists, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, The Band, Townes Van Zandt, Frank Sinatra, various timeless chorales, even knocking Nina Simone off her intimate stage.  Even the spunky Brett Dennen had his red locks blowing in the wake of the pain's wind. Damien Rice was left standing, but barely -- more of a stagger than a stalwart stance.

So I answered a call from a caller I did not recognize.

It was the Crisis Intervention Of Houston (Inc.) calling "on behalf of the White House."

No coffee in my system, but three cats attached to head, right hip, and square upon my chest, I thought, "Well, of course.  Who else would be calling this fine Sunday morning but some suicide prevention hotline on behalf of my friends in the Barack Obama Administration?"

The very nice person on the other end of the connection wanted to make sure I "had access to all the resources" I need.  Beyond a loaded gun, I assured her resources were to be had aplenty here in Tête de Hergé.

No, I managed to set aside morbid humor and reality just long enough to be completely mortified that my finely tuned letters to the President had set in motion, not the rectification of health care and employment injustices impacting human life, itself, but, rather, a concern that I really meant to perform DIY amputations after consuming scads of methadone washed down with the best of a single malt scotch.

So, a sincere statement of thanks to that wonderful woman who made that cold call, and appreciation to the Obama Letter Reader who put me on the Suicide Watch List.

Suicide is part of the daily routine when you live with this much unrelieved pain and disability for this long, and the only assurance doctors can supply is that the future will be the same, or worse. When you don't sleep nearly enough, especially in consecutive minutes.  When "hope" is a construct, and you spend way too much time comforting those you'd hoped might comfort you.  When your financial resources are destroyed, and your career made a laughing stock of a memory.  When you cannot even hold someone else's hand because it feels like an attack with Sand Paper Set Ablaze.  When you cannot talk about any of these things due to the fatigue of those few still around, trying to help.

And when the person upon whom you have dumped the most, with whom you have shared every detail of the journey turns out to be so damned ill, and so ill-treated?  To someone as weak as I am, lacking the stern moral fiber of my ancestors, suicide seems quite the viable option, and so is considered, daily.

But thank you, Crisis Intervention of Houston, and White House staffers, for caring enough to put me on The List.

Imagine the impact if you bypassed those such as me and called some of the suicidal veterans returned from multiple deployments?  Last I checked, 22 veterans a day kill themselves.  They don't endlessly whine, they don't "blog" it, but maybe they write their Commander-in-Chief now and then.

Like I said, this is the most humiliating post ever, and yet, in the intent of all parties is a desire to "do good," and to stop, or slow, the bad.

Dear President Obama...

© 2015 L. Ryan

REPOST in the wake of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' Shooting: Pollyanna's Glad Game

When a Congressperson is shot at point blank range in the head, it is time to examine the atmosphere that is informing our political and social makeup.


It is time to talk about these things, it is time to put up our "Polyanna Glad Games," and to pull our collective head out of the sand. Discourse, and its level of civility, matters.


Words matter.


There are desperately angry people who are desperately searching for leadership. The desperation has been increasingly palpable since President Obama took office -- his election having tapped into the barely suppressed rage of racists whose racism has heretofore managed to adequately explain their racist world. They feel intimately violated by the sweeping changes in the United States, no matter how intelligent or necessary that change has been.


It's been all "Don't tread on me" with neverending references to some abstract "Truth" and fantastical "Liberties" that our "Forefathers" apparently secreted from their very pores. 

Already I am reading things like "[t]here aren't many details yet, but whatever they turn out to be, they will be spun hard, and not in favor of liberty," that from Moonbattery on today's shooting. 


It's been nothing but racist, ignorant bullshit for way too long. And there has grown alongside of it a fluorishing political economy of wagging radio tongues and malevolent talking heads.


The sad thing is that those with real points to make on the conservative side of politics and governing have been drowned out, their thoughts and considered points trammeled by demagoguery.


There is a place for the right, the left, and the moderate.


There is no place, or, at least, there ought not be a place, for mindless followers spurred on by meanspirited Machiavellis.


Anyway, I lay the blame for Congress Woman Giffords death squarely on the shoulders of FOX News and those who put gun targets on the backs of public servants.


It will be a while before I play The Glad Game. How about you?

***************************************************************

The editorial below is one of the best, most thought-and-discussion provoking pieces I've come across in a good while. It's reproduced here in its entirety -- please forgive me for that and be sure to follow the link, because the comments are also well worth a read.

I am a Frank Rich fan. He is meticulous. He is candid.

And I usually agree with him -- there's that!

I haven't yet scoped out the responses to this editorial -- I am sure they're mounting -- but will post links to them. Maybe tomorrow! I am having a few days of... I don't know exactly how to characterize it... carefully crafted peace? It took me a week but I managed to trace the source of my acid stomach to all this mess.

We've been laid bare. I've been laid bare. Flailed, thrashed. My mind is bleeding.

And in other, more important news? Fred installed a birdhouse in the huge oak sheltering our suite in the northeast wing of Marlinspike Hall, where we have been living for a decade or so, rent-free but burdened by incredible maintenance cares -- all courtesy of Captain Haddock. Five minutes after hanging the For Rent sign, a robin moved in and began building!

Yes, I am playing the Pollyanna Glad Game, however did you know?

For a moment there was silence. The sky was darkening fast. Pollyanna took a firmer hold of her friend's arm.

"I reckon I'm glad, after all, that you did get scared -- a little, 'cause then you came after me," she shivered.

"Poor little lamb! And you must be hungry, too. I -- I'm afraid you'll have ter have bread and milk in the kitchen with me. Yer aunt didn't like it -- because you didn't come down ter supper, ye know."

"But I couldn't. I was up here."

"Yes; but -- she didn't know that, you see!" observed Nancy, dryly, stifling a chuckle. "I'm sorry about the bread and milk; I am, I am."

"Oh, I'm not. I'm glad."

"Glad! Why?"

"Why, I like bread and milk, and I'd like to eat with you. I don't see any trouble about being glad about that."

"You don't seem ter see any trouble bein' glad about everythin'," retorted Nancy, choking a little over her remembrance of Pollyanna's brave attempts to like the bare little attic room.

Pollyanna laughed softly.

"Well, that's the game, you know, anyway."

"The -- game?"

"Yes; the 'just being glad' game."

"Whatever in the world are you talkin' about?"

"Why, it's a game. Father told it to me, and it's lovely," rejoined Pollyanna. "We've played it always, ever since I was a little, little girl. I told the Ladies' Aid, and they played it -- some of them."

"What is it? I ain't much on games, though."

Pollyanna laughed again, but she sighed, too; and in the gathering twilight her face looked thin and wistful.

"Why, we began it on some crutches that came in a missionary barrel."

"Crutches!"

"Yes. You see I'd wanted a doll, and father had written them so; but when the barrel came the lady wrote that there hadn't any dolls come in, but the little crutches had. So she sent 'em along as they might come in handy for some child, sometime. And that's when we began it."

"Well, I must say I can't see any game about that, about that," declared Nancy, almost irritably.

"Oh, yes; the game was to just find something about everything to be glad about -- no matter what 'twas," rejoined Pollyanna, earnestly. "And we began right then -- on the crutches."

"Well, goodness me! I can't see anythin' ter be glad about -- gettin' a pair of crutches when you wanted a doll!"

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

"There is -- there is," she crowed. "But I couldn't see it, either, Nancy, at first," she added, with quick honesty. "Father had to tell it to me."

"Well, then, suppose you tell me," almost snapped Nancy.

"Goosey! Why, just be glad because you don't - need -- 'em!" exulted Pollyanna, triumphantly. "You see it's just as easy -- when you know how!"

"Well, of all the queer doin's!" breathed Nancy, regarding Pollyanna with almost fearful eyes.

"Oh, but it isn't queer -- it's lovely," maintained Pollyanna enthusiastically. "And we've played it ever since. And the harder 'tis, the more fun 'tis to get 'em out; only -- only sometimes it's almost too hard -- like when your father goes to Heaven, and there isn't anybody but a Ladies' Aid left."

The Rage Is Not About Health Care

By FRANK RICH
Published: March 27, 2010

THERE were times when last Sunday’s great G.O.P. health care implosion threatened to bring the thrill back to reality television. On ABC’s “This Week,” a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe. A few hours later, the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his “Hell no, you can’t!” incantation in the House chamber — instant fodder for a new viral video remixing his rap with will.i.am’s “Yes, we can!” classic from the campaign. Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.

But the laughs evaporated soon enough. There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their families.

How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.

No less curious is how disproportionate this red-hot anger is to its proximate cause. The historic Obama-Pelosi health care victory is a big deal, all right, so much so it doesn’t need Joe Biden’s adjective to hype it. But the bill does not erect a huge New Deal-Great Society-style government program. In lieu of a public option, it delivers 32 million newly insured Americans to private insurers. As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.

Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.

When Social Security was passed by Congress in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, there was indeed heated opposition. As Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post, Alf Landon built his catastrophic 1936 presidential campaign on a call for repealing Social Security. (Democrats can only pray that the G.O.P. will “go for it” again in 2010, as Obama goaded them on Thursday, and keep demanding repeal of a bill that by September will shower benefits on the elderly and children alike.) When L.B.J. scored his Medicare coup, there were the inevitable cries of “socialism” along with ultimately empty rumblings of a boycott from the American Medical Association.

But there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.

The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.

If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.

If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that’s their right. If they want to replay the petulant Gingrich government shutdown of 1995 by boycotting hearings and, as John McCain has vowed, refusing to cooperate on any legislation, that’s their right too (and a political gift to the Democrats). But they can’t emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts. We know the end of that story. And they can’t pretend that we’re talking about “isolated incidents” or a “fringe” utterly divorced from the G.O.P. A Quinnipiac poll last week found that 74 percent of Tea Party members identify themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while only 16 percent are aligned with Democrats.

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.

Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.

Rationale: "...and write about it all"

Slaking my thirst!

My eye flew to the bolded "Dr. SecretWave" on my Google Reader page.  I'd not seen a post from him since April, and that one alluded in its title to a "probable farewell."

Today, at least, Dr. SecretWave 101 has a new post:  RATIONal.  Health care rationing is one of those trigger, scary concepts designed to stir up other triggering scary notions -- like Death Panels.

Part of it goes something like this (when you've read this, run over there and read the rest):

Living in Europe [Baumholder, Germany] insulates the average human from goofy, over-the-top language meant to get people to do and think in ways that OTHER people want them to. So, I haven’t been very caught up in, or all that impressed by, all the politics and steamy language coming out of my home country these past months.


We have fast government. No arguing. You like. Like pizza.

Now the election is finally over, we find that Republicans have “swept” themselves into a level of “power” that assures exactly zero will happen unless they work with all the Democrats and Independents that never lost their jobs. Some people think all the upcoming wrangling is a bad thing; I think it’s great. A super-active government rarely doesn’t do anything well. There IS a type of government that “gets things done” almost immediately, with little debate. It’s called a dictatorship. If you’re smitten with that idea, move to North Korea and try THAT speedy idea on and see how you like it.


Anyway, I received a link to a very persuasive and scary speech given by an orthopedic surgeon named Dr. David Janda, wherein he outlined the horrors and sneaky tricks piled into the Obama health care bill. His speech was in support of Rob Steele, a cardiologist-turned-politician likely because he was mad as hell at the terrible direction of the country (*yawn*, aren’t we all?). Presumably, said cardiologist is now back in the clinic, since he thoroughly lost the election of the 15th Congressional District of Michigan to John Dingell something like 83k votes to 118k votes. Apparently, the Dingells have run that district for generations. If you’re looking for nutty, inflammatory, manipulative language, look no further than at a political battle between a challenger losing in the polls as s/he tries to unseat a longstanding incumbent.


The gist of Dr. Janda’s speech is how Obama intends to RATION health care. This actually sparked my interest. I don’t really care about health care system politics; I’d rather just see patients, frankly. But I have to just say to my fledgling SW101 crowd, I SUPPORT RATIONING....

He has a new blog, called Lover, Daddy, Doctor and fleshes out where one blog ends and the other begins in this way:

Unlike my last blog – which was ostensibly about medicine, but really about anything – this is a chronicle of a guy trying to be a good Dad and good Husband. I’ve been recently trying to be a better man, basically, and since I think best by writing, I figured a companion blog wouldn’t be a bad idea.

The reason I stopped the other blog and started this one is because my goals in life recently became very clear to me. Clear enough to state it here, and to record my pursuit of it for the world to see. Here it is:

I want nothing more than to follow God sensibly, love my wife, love my kids,

be a pretty good doc, stay in shape, surf occasionally, travel often, drink red wine,

make some love, make some friends, get out of debt…

and write about it all.

Writers need readers.  What are you waiting for?

Rivulets of Pluckiness: My Psychopathology (WITH UPDATE)

In the week since sending off my application for health insurance under the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan * , I am feeling much worse.  In the course of the day, my mind wanders back to my last conversation with one of the world's most talented shoulder surgeons -- and my ludicrous questions to the very patient man.

"How will I know if it gets worse, if I need to come in?" and another 5 permutations of the same inquiry were met with a muttered:  "You'll know." 

Eyes downcast. 
No charge for the office visit.
Orders for joint aspiration under fluoroscopy -- the sixth -- which the hospital refused to schedule due to my lack of insurance.

My Teacherly Self has assured you many times, Faithful Reader, that there are, indeed, stupid questions.  My question'to ShoulderMan, however obtuse it might sound to you, was not stupid. It just didn't have an answer.

Given that fever, pain, sweats, and fatigue are daily occurrences, nothing to write home about, and certainly nothing to call the doctor over, how am I supposed to gauge... change?  That's one version of my question.  The throbbing, throbbing version?  How much can I stand?  How much, in the Name of God, should I stand?  What am I worth?

For instance, what am I to do or think when the pain begins to have that unmistakable infected ::twinge:: again, when using my left arm to do anything beyond putting a masterful grip on a paperback (currently The Cider House Rules by John Irving) causes an increase in fever and pain, even brings on The Febrile Shivers, when my hair is plastered to my head by what can only be called RIVULETS of salty sweat?  I confess that I cannot squelch the feeling that something ought to be done, that there ought to be some sort of response.  Hello?  Hello?

If you would like to make a call, please hang up, and try again.

Hey... I just noticed something:  It's a sign of my innate PLUCKINESS that I came up with RIVULETS.

[Possibly from Italian rivoletto, diminutive of rivolo, small stream, from Latin rvulus, diminutive of rvus, stream; see rei- in Indo-European roots.]

So, Friend.  What kind of psychological disorder is this, then?  Are my mind and my body in collusion? Are psyche and soma permitting a worsening of things now that addressing this bone infection won't q:u:i:t:e ruin me financially?  Or is it that now I am allowed, by a hyper-protective subconscious, to perceive just how bad things really are, and have been?  Whatever the underlying psychology, psychopathology -- I don't want to go down this road.  I don't want things to get harder. 

Yes, I hear that annoying high-pitched whine, too. 

I cannot go on like this -- this daily descent into Hell.  Have I garnered no new skills?  Why can't I look the other way, play the Polyanna Glad Game? 

I haven't phoned in my distress, nor emailed my Go-To-Guy Internist, because the one detail that never quite leaves me is the one where both ShoulderMan and Go-To-Guy cough-and-blurt that there is nothing more to do, except to remove my prostheses.  Permanently.

I can see how that would prevent the hardware from serving as petri dishes for further bonzo-bacteria... but it doesn't address the little buggers already in the humerus... Y'know? 

Impending Implosion Warning.  Impending Implosion Warning.  Impending Implosion Warning.

Thanks for the space and time to vent. 

{you know i want to apologize.  you know i do.  and so i ask myself:  whose blog is it anyway?  hmmm?}

* AUGUST 12, 2010: If you happen to be sporting your Dancing Shoes, prepare to do the Happy Dance! 

Today's mail included a slender envelope from the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, Administered by GEHA. 

 I admit that Fred was asked to pray before I opened it -- not some wimpy WASP-y mumblejumble, no!  Fred incorporates kippah, tallit, and tefillin -- and he looks quite fetching in his spiritual armor -- while he performs an impeccable High Mass in medieval Latin.  To cover all bases, we set out large baguette-shaped baskets full of French Existential classics, a sort of tired homage to Christ as the Bread of Life, and a nod-with-a-wink to actual bread to keep the actually living... alive. 

La Bonne et Belle Bianca felt it imperative that she don a long, white linen tunic, à la Isadora Duncan, and run on her tippy-toes -- in a weird crisscross pattern abbreviated by what might have been S.O.S. signals -- while waving smoking fronds of sage.

Marmy Fluffy Butt, after her great swath of tail was sufficiently poofed, led Dobby and Uncle Kitty Big Balls in a decorous purred rendition of Hymn of Hope, the famed devotional commissioned for the 150th anniversary of the First Baptist Church of Lapeer, Missouri.  Marmy is particularly keen on the musical notation for the piece that dictates it be done "reverently with quiet strength."

Thus fortified, I carefully slit open the envelope, hands trembling.  It was a flashback to the long ago days of college acceptances, with the significant improvement that the word approved was greatly bolded.

 As in:  approved approved approved !

When the sage ash settled, and the sacramental music faded into a bit of impressive jazzy scat, a few inconsistencies between the promised item and the item delivered were noted -- the monthly premium that was only to change when one shifted from one age bracket to another now may possibly change due to "market" forces; the deductible paid between now and the end of the year does not appear to be applied to next year's due, and a few other odd notes.  Each problem may be resolved by the more complete language of the full policy, which I haven't yet received.

Anyway, Dear Reader -- dance!  Dance with abandon, dance with joy -- I am insured! 

President Obama?  Thank you!

Support Rep. Alan Grayson and HR 4789

Representative Alan Grayson may prove to be my next political hero, a role and an honor not frequently filled. He is the author of H. R. 4789 and presented it this way (in case you are stubbornly refusing to watch the YouTube video above!) back on 12 March:

This simple four-page bill lets any American buy into Medicare at cost. You want it, you pay for it, you're in. It adds nothing to the deficit; you pay what it costs.

Let's face it. Health insurance companies charge as much money as possible, and they provide as little care as possible. The difference is called profit. You can't blame them for it; that's what a corporation does. Birds got to fly, fish got to swim, health insurers got to rip you off. And if you get really expensive, they've got to pull the plug on you. So for those of us who would like to stay alive, we need a public option.

In many areas of the country, one or two insurers have over 80% of the market. They can charge anything they want. And when you get sick, they can flip the bird at you. So we need a public option.

And they face no real competition because it costs billions of dollars just to set up a national health care network. In fact, the only one that's nationwide is . . . Medicare. And we limit that to one-eight of the population. It's like saying that only seniors can drive on federal highways. We really need a public option.

And to the right-wing loons who call it socialism, we say, "if you want to be a slave to the insurance companies, that's fine. If you want 30% of your premiums to go to 'administrative costs' and billion-dollar bonuses for insurance CEOs who figure out new and creative ways to deny you the care you need to stay healthy and alive, that's fine. But don't you try to dictate to me that I can't have a public option!"

And there is a way left to get it. By insisting on a vote on H.R. 4789. Three votes on health care, not two. The Senate bill, the reconciliation amendments, and the Public Option Act.

We got 50 co-sponsors for this bill in two days. Including five powerful committee chairman. But we need more.

Sign our Petition at WeWantMedicare.com.

Call. Write. Visit. Do whatever you can do to get you Congressman to co-sponsor this bill, and push it to a vote. Right now, before it's too late.

Let's do it!


Here is the complete text of the full bill:

HR 4789 IH

111th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. R. 4789

To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for an option for any citizen or permanent resident of the United States to buy into Medicare.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

March 9, 2010


Mr. GRAYSON (for himself, Mr. FILNER, Mr. POLIS of Colorado, Ms. PINGREE of Maine, Ms. SHEA-PORTER, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts, Mr. KUCINICH, Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland, Ms. WATSON, and Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A BILL

To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for an option for any citizen or permanent resident of the United States to buy into Medicare.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,


SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘Public Option Act’ or the ‘Medicare You Can Buy Into Act’.

SEC. 2. UNIVERSAL MEDICARE BUY-IN OPTION.
(a) In General- Part A of title XVIII of the Social Security Act is amended--

(1) in section 1818(a), by striking ‘or 1818A’ and inserting ‘, 1818A, or 1818B’; and

(2) by inserting after section 1818A the following new section:

‘UNIVERSAL BUY-IN‘Sec. 1818B.

‘(a) In General- (a) Every individual who--

‘(1) is a resident of the United States;

‘(2) is either (A) a citizen or national of the United States, or (B) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence; and

‘(3) is not otherwise entitled to benefits under this part or eligible to enroll under this part;

shall be eligible to enroll in the insurance program established by this part. An individual may enroll under this section only in such manner and form as may be prescribed in regulations, and only during an enrollment period prescribed in or under this section.

‘(b) Enrollment; Coverage- The Secretary shall establish enrollment periods and coverage under this section consistent with the principles for establishment of enrollment periods and coverage for individuals under section 1818, except that no entitlement to benefits under this part shall be effective before the first day of the first calendar year beginning after the date of the enactment of this Act.

‘(c) Premiums-

‘(1) IN GENERAL- The provisions of subsections (d)(1), (d)(2), and (d)(3) of section 1818 insofar as they apply to premiums (including collection of premiums) shall apply to premiums and collection of premiums under this section, except that--

‘(A) paragraphs (4) and (5) of section 1818 shall not be applicable; and

‘(B) the estimate of the monthly actuarial rate under section 1818(d) shall be computed and applied under this paragraph based upon costs incurred for individuals within each age cohort specified in paragraph (2) rather than for all individuals age 65 and older.

‘(2) AGE COHORTS- The age cohorts specified in this paragraph are as follows:

‘(A) Individuals under 19 years of age.

‘(B) Individuals at least 19 years of age but not more than 25 years of age.

‘(C) Individuals at least 26 years of age and not more than 35 years of age.

‘(D) Individuals at least 36 years of age and not more than 45 years of age.

‘(E) Individuals at least 46 years of age and not more than 55 years of age.

‘(F) Individuals at least 56 years of age and not more than 64 years of age.‘(d) Treatment- An individual enrolled under this part pursuant to this section shall not be treated as enrolled under this part (or any other part of this title) for purposes of obtaining medical assistance for medicare cost-sharing or otherwise under title XIX.’.

More Close Encounters of the "Bob" Kind

Has enough time passed since the jubilant signing of the Health Care Reform Bill and its necessity of 20 pens that we can settle down and speak the truth?

Like... what a terrible disappointment it is that the public option was sacrificed, when it alone would have made this true reform?

Like... how despicable conservative obstructionists have been? How heartless, and cruel? How manipulative and disrespectful of their own followers, that they have, essentially, abused free speech by inciting to riot, by screaming "fire, fire, fire" in the cramped and dark theatre that is the U.S.A.?

Like... how uninformed and illogical many citizens are, and how driven by out-of-control emotion -- fuming, frustrated anger that has all the hallmarks of a two-year-old's temper tantrum, except that two-year-olds don't usually wield the weapons of bigotry?

And (having taken a quick look at today's news headlines) like... how if the Democrats could adopt just a tiny bit of right-wing anality, the bill would not be subject to a re-vote on the basis of parliamentary mistakes? Just because you have succeeded in doing, in a marginal way, what is minimally moral, does not mean that you should fail at following the rules for governance. Yes, I am a nerd, and often a wonk. Yes, I am frequently appointed to be the Ball Buster Rule Diviner -- often seen as a curse, due to the thankless nature of the work, but that role is necessary to success. I haven't yet scoped out who the House Parliamentarian is... but 30 lashes with a limp noodle might be appropriate.

So I ran across this Emperor Bob person/persona on Twitter, then briefly visited his blog, Emperors Rants and Observations, where he can be found addressing the Various Issues of the Day, from campaign finance reform and climate change to the health care reform initiative and Alaskan politics. He's keen.

Oh, Faithful Readers:
I am so tired this morning.

My internist and I, recognizing an infection flaring in my left shoulder, decided that I should return to my poor orthopedic surgeon. Um, poor in the sense that the man has operated on me eight times since 2005, replacing shoulders, removing shoulders, putting in antibiotic spacers, taking them out, and so on, but has not managed to get any of the bacterial specimens to grow in the laboratory environment. Without identifying the offending bug, the correct antibiotics cannot be applied to the situation.

And now the pain is getting worse on the right side, and... {whisperofdenial} my left hip. Both of those joints have "hardware" implanted, thus making them attractive breeding grounds for germs. But we won't think about that today.

So, Fred loaded me and my super-duper powerchair into Ruby, the Honda CR-V, and we sped off to see said surgeon.

You are a fool if you believe that being without health insurance does not affect the standard of the care you receive, even in the form of advice.

ShoulderMan opined that he wanted another "aspiration under fluoroscopy," which would be the fifth or sixth time we tried that particular trick. It is painful, not particularly dangerous, and expensive. But, for me, the overriding factor was that it has never produced a piece of useful data.

If samples of purulent pus taken directly from my humerus during surgery and rushed to the awaiting petri dishes in a sophisticated hospital lab also cannot produce the identification of the offending organism, why do we keep pretending that these painful and expensive aspirations are in any way superior?

I reminded ShoulderMan that since I had last seen him, I had been priced out of my health insurance -- my Faithful Readers know well that I just could not swing $1513 a month for premiums, plus the $5000 more in deductible, and all of that on top of the thousands not covered. I live on private disability insurance due to the combined effects of CRPS in all my limbs (and now, face), avascular necrosis, lupus, Addison's disease, aortic insufficiency and so on, ad infinitem, ad nauseum.

Believe me, I tried to stay insured. It took the help of my state's Insurance Commissioner for me to have coverage to begin with, once COBRA expired. But BCBS eventually was demanding 97% of my income... and I dare you to criticize me for folding, at that point.

ShoulderMan said: "I don't get it. You ought to have MEDICARE."

{we have had this exact conversation already several times over and over again, not to be repetitive or fall into a déjà-vu sort of iterative redundancy}

Moi: "Yes, Dear ShoulderMan, I ought to. {actually, i tried to pull off an oughtn't i? but couldn't spit it out.} However, I fail to qualify because most of my working years were spent in university systems that did not pay into Social Security but rather into poorly funded and criminally operated pension funds. I lack ONE work credit, in the amount of $830, toward eligibility."

ShoulderMan replied, with a fair amount of dripping condemnation in his voice: "Well, why don't you do some work for a week, maybe tutor some local college kids, and turn that in?"

Moi: "Hmm, wow, I never thought of that." Okay, that's a lie. What I really said was:

"I have been informed by my Disability Insurer that to do so would mean the loss of my disability income, and it would be well over two years before any substantive replacement from governmental sources would kick in."

ShoulderMan muttered: "Oh, well... Okay. So I think we need to get this aspiration done and consult with a new Infectious Disease doctor, maybe over at Charity Hospital. This is the kind of thing that cannot be ignored..."

And he promptly exited, stage left.

His minion, PA Bob, then did something that reduced me to tears. Yep, here I go again, even crying into my laptop.

He came over to me, handed me the official pink and yellow copies of codes for the visit, so that I could check out and pay (which I obviously was prepared to do). As he walked into the crowded hallway, he said, loudly:

"Why, wasn't that nice of Dr. ShoulderMan. Look, he marked the box for 'No Charge' so that you don't have to pay for this consult."

Dr. ShoulderMan, who moves at roughly the speed of light, was long gone and already ensconced in the next exam room, so Bob was not making points with him... Leaving me, once again, to wonder why Bobs, in particular, are so intent on confusing me! For a succinct treatment of my history with Bobs, read this.

I've never engaged in a political dialogue with either PA Bob or his boss, having intimated from various remarks that they are both ultra-conservative and that ShoulderMan may, in fact, be an Evangelical (I intend that to reference the Conservative Evangelical Movement, à la George W. Bush).

Aside: Here is one of the fairest succinct explanations of Evangelicalism that I've run across. It comes from an address by conservative EPPC Senior Fellow Wilfred McClay* entitled American Culture and the Presidency, delivered either in Fall 2004 or early 2005.

As a faith that revolves around the experience of individual transformation, it inevitably exists in tension with settled ways, established social hierarchies, customary usages, and entrenched institutional forms. Because evangelicalism places such powerful emphasis upon the individual act of conversion, and insists upon the individual's ability to have a personal and unmediated relationship to the Deity and to the Holy Scriptures, it fits well with the American tendency to treat all existing institutions, even the church itself, as if their existence and authority were provisional and subordinate, merely serving as a vehicle for the proclamation of the Gospel and the achievement of a richer and more vibrant individual faith.

Anyway, there is nothing abstract in the nature of how being an uninsured (and uninsurable) citizen impacts my life. It truly may contribute to my death, as I have spent the first few working hours of this day on the phone with the aforementioned Charity Hospital -- and the helpful pickings are, let's say, slim. The clinic system there may eventually help me, but there are no appointments to be had anytime soon.

Unbelievably, three times (like Peter's crowing cocks), I was told to go to the Emergency Room!

I have avoided a close rereading of what Obama signed, and what Congress is continuing to work through, precisely because I am not yet convinced of the permanence of any change -- but clearly, I am going to have to dedicate time to it today.

Because if there is no fairly immediate help for me in the legislation, I am close to abandoning all hope. I cannot continue with daily fevers up to 101, the attendant sweats, chills, and pain -- on top of my usual severe pain from CRPS and AVN -- I cannot sit in waiting rooms for hours, especially now that my left hip may have joined with the Infected Skeletal Alliance.

Oh, boo-hoo! What a sob fest this post has turned into! But I am going to leave it as is, if only for its potential to serve as a shaming mirror the next time I decide to whine.

The saving grace here is this YouTube video from Emperor Bob, an amazingly calm rant to which I will return with frequency... Thanks, Bob! [Correction -- a correction which blows the whole Bob Phenomenon to hell, but maybe you won't notice -- that is not Bob on the video. No, the star of that show is one "old fart rants," who has quite the head of steam built up over on YouTube!]






*Wilfred McClay is the 2009-2010 William E. Simon Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy. He is the SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he is also professor of history, since 1999. He is Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and has served since 2002 on the National Council on the Humanities.

Major sigh, and where is the ibuprofen? "The SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities"?

Prohibit Lifetime Caps

This call to action by NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders) was forwarded by Jim Broatch of RSDSA. Normally, I wouldn't give it much thought -- I doubt if it would even register as an important issue with me until a few years ago.

However, when I was shifted from one group to another in my coverage with BCBS, the company and I went back and forth, and then, round and round, over the issue of lifetime coverage. The two handbooks they sent me clearly said I was capped at $5 million. BCBS claimed that I had received -- not one, but TWO booklets that somehow contained misprints, since the true cap was $2 million.

And now... it doesn't matter at all, because they proceeded to price me out of coverage -- oh, when was it? I remember! October 1, 2009, two short weeks ago.

In case you think that $2 million was generous on the part of BCBS, think about this: in 10 months -- from August 2008 to June 2009 -- I incurred $500,000 in medical expenses. Granted, that was an unusually crappy time. But, the point is that it happens.

So give this a read, and please consider acting on the suggestions from NORD:


Please Help Us Educate Members of Congress About Lifetime Insurance Caps!
National Organization for Rare Disorders


While NORD has been excited to see the elimination of lifetime caps included in each health reform proposal currently being considered by Congress, the old adage "the devil is in the details" still rings true. Although all of the bills eliminate lifetime caps, in some proposals the provision will be delayed and in others there is no requirement for existing plans. We need you to write your members of Congress to ask for lifetime caps to be prohibited immediately.

The way the bills are currently drafted would result in many people potentially facing lifetime caps, even after health reform is enacted. Individuals with employer-sponsored insurance could face caps until 2018 or possibly indefinitely if their insurance coverage does not change. This is unacceptable. NORD has been advocating for the immediate elimination of lifetime caps in both new and existing plans in all insurance markets.

Congressional leaders are currently working to combine the various health reform bills into House and Senate versions before they can be voted on by each chamber. Now is the time for everyone who wants lifetime caps to be eliminated to contact Congress.

Please e-mail your members of Congress TODAY to ask that lifetime caps be eliminated immediately. Sample letters have been provided (see below) that you can personalize with information about how your family or your members are affected by insurance problems, the annual cost of care and, especially, lifetime caps. If you have hit a lifetime cap, please be sure to include that as well.

To find the e-mail addresses of your Senators and Representative go to:

U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Senate

Sample Senate Letter

Sample House of Representatives Letter

Thank you for your continued support. In this climate of change, it's VERY important for all of us in the rare disease community to make our voices heard on issues related to health reform.


This E-alert was made possible by the contribution of the members of the Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association (RSDSA). To learn more about becoming a member of RSDSA, please click here.

Extreme Unction: Last Rites of the Insured

Here we go, Gentle Readers, setting out on our first LIVE blogging event!

The occasion? If you will direct your eyes to the upper left corner of the page, you'll see a countdown clock, ticking away the seconds until I join the ranks of The Uninsured. See it?

As I write this, it reads: 1 day, 12 hours, 51 minutes, 35 seconds. 34, 33...

And so, down to the wire, with my sour stomach in a knot, I am getting ready to submit for refill as many prescriptions as I can -- because at the moment, I am covered at 100% for medications. That'll drop to zero in 1 day, 12 hours, 48 minutes, and 51 seconds. 50, 49...

Yes, right *now*, I am fulling covered for everything from hospitalization, tests, and office visits to durable medical goods (I'm tempted to try and get a new wheelchair while I can... but don't worry, I won't).

"How wonderful for you!" you may be thinking. Good thing you're not actually here. I might have to hurt you. I might have to explain that in order to reach this level of coverage, I had to bleed many, many dollars -- an amount far beyond what I can actually afford, such that now (1 day, 12 hours, 42 minutes, 6 seconds to go! 5, 4...) I am up the creek without insurance.

The pharmacy I use for all medications except the strong painkillers I take is only a few blocks away, part of a large national grocery chain. The drugs for pain I fill, monthly, in the pharmacy housed in the same building as my pain management doctor, so that the pharmacist knows me or can easily doublecheck my legitimacy. I fully understand -- dispensing methadone and endocet is serious business. I saw the pain doctor last week -- or rather, I saw the PA, who is infinitely more on the ball than he is. She, at least, knows how to keep a small measure of hope alive. Whereas he makes a Pointed Point of telling me, whenever he sees me, that there is nothing more to try in my fight against the pain, primarily from CRPS/RSD and collapsing joints -- except for pharmaceuticals. His average time with me is under two minutes, and given that this includes that Pep Talk? Well, it really is a freaking shot in the arm to talk to that... man. His PA, though, shares information from the conferences she attends, tells me of things other CRPS patients are trying, and tries to resuscitate my flagging faith in the medical arts. Through her efforts, I believe I am taking the appropriate amount of narcotics; When he was running my show, I was overmedicated. I would rather hurt, which I surely do, than be befuddled and vacant. It is a fine line and I am happy to have her help me walk it.

I didn't tell her I was losing my insurance coverage. I sat there, chatting away and panicky inside because I knew time was running out. The way this physician operates, you must make a $195 office visit every month in order to receive pharmaceutical pain management. He is a physiatrist -- a specialty foreign to most people. In fact, most times, when I write "physiatry," I receive kind corrections from people who explain that the correct spelling is "psychiatry." I don't mind. I understand how they might make that assumption! A physiatrist is a doctor specializing in rehabilitation:

Rehabilitation physicians are nerve, muscle, and bone experts who treat injuries or illnesses that affect how you move. Rehabilitation physicians have completed training in the medical specialty physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R).

In other words, my doctor resents like hell being asked by my s.u.p.e.r.b primary care physician to write monthly prescriptions for pain medications. He does not like to treat patients solely with drugs. It's confusing, sometimes, his attitude --which is fairly legible upon his face. He is so resolute about there not being anything else to try -- when common sense might dictate that he would be first in line in favor of alternative, and more permanent, measures.

In fact, he and one of his partners proved to be the roadblock preventing me from getting a Spinal Cord Stimulator or an Intrathecal Pain Pump -- both things that might afford me real relief. And now, of course, as it has turned out -- there is not a surgeon in the world who would agree to implant another foreign body. Until the source of this osteomyelitis is found, it is too risky. Even then, since I am now severely immunosuppressed -- well, blah. And bleck, too.

Now, of course, I have no choice but to tell him and the PA that I'll be paying out-of-pocket. I am scared he will say that he won't negotiate with me -- neither about price nor about frequency of visits. Perhaps he will seize this as an opportunity to finally dump me as a patient altogether.

Sometimes I wish I felt secure enough to tell him how I never take as much pain medication as I am "supposed" to... how I force myself to take drug holidays every few weeks... but I don't think his reaction would be positive.

1 day, 11 hours, 52 minutes, 39 seconds. 38, 37...

Well, there is no putting it off, this list of medication refills. The pharmacy I'm using allows for submission of refills via the internet, so I'm just clicking from this window to another to finally be done with this.

Since the latest Wordle Contest has been such a bust, maybe I should start a "Guess the Grand Total" Competition. The closest to the actual cost paid by BCBS gets The Castafiore for a day! It matters to me, the total, even when they pick up the final tab -- because I pay upfront, and then am reimbursed. I've never had too many problems with them refunding my money (in about 3 weeks or so) but, at the moment? I would not be surprised by anything that bleeping insurance company does...

It can be scary to put all of these things on a credit card every month, trusting that a refund will arrive in a timely fashion. For what it is worth, I pay my credit card balances in full each month. At least, that was my habit.

Here's the list, in no particular order. Last week, methadone and endocet were filled at a cost of $106.28 (remember, too, that these are the negotiated prices).

Prednisone (generic)
Hydrocortisone (generic)
Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine, generic)
Lumigan
Nexium
Starlix
Glimepiride (generic)
Baclofen
Tizanidine
Amitriptyline (elavil, generic)
Alendronate sodium (fosamax, generic)*
Cymbalta
Lasix (furosemide, generic)
Zofran (ondansetron, generic)
Diabetic testing supplies**

PLUS -- I'll be calling my trusty pharmacist to see if I have any antibiotics with refills, just to have some on hand in case Infectious Disease Dood wants to give any another try.

*I'm filling this instead of Forteo. I mean, scope out how much that costs! I am afraid to charge it this final go 'round, because several times already, BCBS and my doctor have come close to brawling over it. I'll tell you a secret. Shhhh! We are. No, we were giving this daily injectable a shot (sorry) in the hopes that my poor disappearing, "avascular," and infected bones might be reincarnated. I do have severe osteoporosis, but it is as a function of osteomyelitis, severe AVN, and CRPS. If my s.u.p.e.r.b primary care physician had his way, I'd take both Fosamax and Forteo.

**Actually, I may pass on these. I am not technically diabetic. However, due to the combination of steroids and infection, my blood sugars have been too high. I know any doctors and diabetics out there are likely to curse me -- but I prefer not to do a lot of testing. The results don't influence what I do and I think the hemoglobin A1C is superior to my dripping blood all over the damned place. As I lose fine function in my hands? Diabetic testing is not so easy anymore.

There's been quite a lag in between the last paragraph and this one. I'm starting the daily afternoon climb of Febrile Mountain, and that, combined with pure anxiety, has left me acting much like someone hopped up on speed. I've dealt with paying the mortgage, VISA, the electric and gas bills, as well as the phone and internet.

I had a brief internal debate as to whether or not internet service should continue to be a necessity, or whether it was a luxury I cannot afford. The decision -- to keep it -- was based on its capacity to entertain and distract me, lessening the need for breakthrough pain medication. Does that sound strange to you? Hmm. It probably does! Makes perfect sense to moi. Also involved in that decision is the fact that The Fredster, La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, and
-- though she doesn't think I know -- Marmy, all rely on the internet as well.

I may start passing the hat, though! Uncle Kitty Big Balls is in charge of Feline Accounts Receivable and has hissed in my general direction that some "accomodation" might be possible.

Anyway... so I've been wasting time, trying not to deal with this Final Rite of the Insured. Did you know that "Anointing of the Sick" has replaced "Extreme Unction"?

1 day, 10 hours, 46 minutes, 58 seconds... going, going, gone.

photo credit -- f 128 Simple, Strange, Roots Photography

Geoffe Haney is a photographer that holds a BFA in with a concentration in photography. He enjoys alternative process to make his images. He utilizes digital, pinhole, Polaroid and other methods to create the perfect image to his eye...

Prints are available in limited editions. If you are interested...He can be contacted by writing to geoffe@gmail.com

Helen puts her foot up Joe Wilson's enormous ass

Take it away, Helen Philpot!

I started (and stopped) two different posts on the subject of Congressman Joe Wilson. Somehow, I knew that either Helen or Margaret would take care of business in a way of which I approved.

To wit:

Margaret, I guess if you get enough morons congregating in one particular geographical area, eventually they will vote a fellow moron to represent them in Congress. Kind of like sleeping with your cousin – eventually your offspring are not going to be right in the head. But the idiot parade coming out of South Carolina seems to be getting longer and longer these days.

From where I sit Republican Congressman Joe Wilson’s heckling of the President puts him pretty far down on the moron food chain in South Carolina - well below Miss Teen Lauren Caitlin Upton, but only slightly above Governor Mark Sanford. Which isn’t saying much considering all of them are behind the Osprey, northern pike, perch, bleak, shrimp and plankton. For those of you in South Carolina that is just a fancy way of saying they aren’t worth a pile of shit in my book – except for that little Lauren Caitlin Upton. She couldn’t help herself the poor dear. Everyone knows you can’t be a carnivore and still fit in your pageant dress.

Folks, let me tell you something about healthcare and health insurance. There are a couple of ways to make a buck in the game. One way is to systematically deny coverage to anyone with a propensity to get sick as evidenced by past occurrences. The other way is to spread the risk over the largest population possible effectively minimizing the impact of the most risky. But there is one way for sure to lose a buck – keep increasing the number of people who can’t pay their bill. It’s really quite simple. A public option means insurance companies will report
profits using language like “impressive” and “satisfactory” rather than
“awesome” and ”a buttload of moolah!”

When exactly did we become so enamoured with health insurance companies that we are now so adamantly fighting for their rights to make a buck off our misfortunes? None of this makes any sense to me. The President wants to make a speech encouraging our children to stay in school and study hard and we compare that to Nazi Germany. Doctors talking to patients about feeding tubes and life support machines has become some secret plot to kill Grandma. Making sure a woman can get treatment for her breast cancer is unreasonable. I don’t know Margaret. What’s next? Governor Perry and Governor Sanford fight to see which state secedes from the Union first- Texas or South Carolina? If only…

Someone needs to remind Representative Wilson that he and his family currently have a public option for their health insurance. And while you’re reminding him of that, be sure he understands that the next time his doctor has a finger up his butt all of us taxpayers footed the bill. Come to think of it, maybe instead of paying the bill we can skip the finger and just introduce his ass to my foot. I mean it. Really.

PS. Did anyone else notice the look Nancy Pelosi gave to Joe Wilson when
he acted out? Now there is a lady I would enjoy having over for coffee and pie.

Now, I do have to say that I like South Carolina. South Carolinians can boast of Charleston, The Citadel, Clemson, Myrtle Beach, Converse College, Furman, Newberry, and... Bob Jones University. Ummm. Yes, well. It is not fair to visit condemnation on the whole state for the idiocies of its parts.

Eerie: Fred just emailed me -- and, like Leroy Jethro Gibbs, I don't believe in coincidences -- an article about Congressman Wilson.

Wilson raises more than $200,000 after outburst
Published: 9/11/09, 3:00 PM EDT
By Peter Hamby and Alexander Mooney CNN

(CNN) - Less than a day after Rep. Joe Wilson formally apologized to President Obama over his "you lie" outburst, a campaign aide confirms that the South Carolina Republican has raised "more than $200,000" in the wake of the now-infamous moment. News of that cash haul comes after Wilson directly asked in a Web video for campaign cash to fend off attacks from political opponents and said he's standing by his opposition to Democratic efforts at health care reform.

"On these issues, I will not be muzzled, I will speak up and speak loudly against this risky plan," Wilson said in a YouTube video released Thursday evening. "The supporters of the government takeover of health care and the liberals who want to give health care to illegals are using my opposition as an excuse to distract from the critical questions being raised about this poorly conceived plan."

The congressman disbursed the video via Twitter and asked his followers to "please watch and pass on."

"[Democrats] want to silence anyone who speaks out against it," Wilson also says in the video. "They made it clear they want to defeat me and pass the plan. I need your help now. ... Contribute to my effort to defeat the proponents of government-run health care."

Wilson also sent a fundraising appeal via e-mail, saying he is confident that "my voice is serving as the voice for Americans across the country who are tired of irresponsible government programs that have only worsened our situation."

The appeal for cash came as Wilson's Democratic opponent in next year's congressional race, Rob Miller, reported raking in $750,000 as a result of the outburst during President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress.

Miller ran against Wilson last year, losing by 8 percentage points. It was Wilson's smallest margin of victory in his five elections for Congress.

In an e-mail to supporters Thursday night, Miller said he is aiming to top over $1 million in the next 24 hours, a total that dwarfs the $67,000 he has took in during the entire first half of the year.

Now, maybe I am a tad bit too skeptical... but I get this sneaky feeling that Joe Wilson was being less than honest when he *apologized* for his [unplanned, unorchestrated, apolitical] outburst the other night.

President Obama's Speech on Health Care

Insult to Injury

Adding to the list of things I pray never to experience:

Ambulance Drops Patient Mid Transport!

Asystole

CONGRATULATIONS to BCBS of Tête de Hergé!

In April, you raised my premium to $1,327.00 (from $1073.00). That caused many a sleepless night, let me tell you!

And so it is completely in keeping with your absence of soul and your insatiable greed, that you should raise my premium once again, this time to $1,513.00 -- beginning in October.

YOU WIN.

I am, as I type this, falling through the cracks. I cannot pay that amount. When I called to see if there were any options left me? Oh, the Hem-and-the-Haw of it all! I could apply for cheaper coverage, opined the Customer Care Associate... but acceptance will be based on my medical history.

Given that it took the Office of the Governor to get *this* shitty coverage, I don't think BCBS of Tête de Hergé is going to offer me anything else out of the kindness of its corporate heart.

Good luck to the rest of you.

Dear President Obama,

It looks like too little, too late...

Penpals: Write for Health Care Reform

Remember back in February, when the world was new? My favorite health care policy wonk and medical blogger, Shadowfax, was sulking because an old friend from his doubtlessly grungy Chicago days had taken a new job, and -- in his words: "He dropped me like a warm turd."

A word [As in: Psst! Over here! Shhh! Quiet, listen up!] -- I am embarrassed to say that I have long periods of mental idling, much like a coughing old jalopy, and while my opinions about health care reform are incredibly strong, they are not well informed beyond the data of the personal. So I do what I always do when smarty-panted conversants start to leave footprints on the top of my head: I locate those that seem closest to professing my own sentiments, but sanely and clearly, and I read them. Yes, I cut out a huge portion of original and new material that I rightly ought to be processing. But I also benefit from well-appointed points-of-vue, dotdotdot.

In short, I let other people do the work.

I am very fond of Shadowfax's old friend. Our relationship is new, and probably conducted under the observant eyes of his protection detail. I've become an ardent penpal.

Okay, so I have written him once. And I wrote "my story" up for submission to a chatty, lighthearted version of the serious, fer-real working group on health care reform.

I've emailed more regularly, and he tweets me all the live long day.

I haven't quite recovered from my "eureka!" moment (long time fan of Archimedes in the tub...). As I began setting down my story of health care and health insurance difficulties, it became crystal clear that any changes made will come too late to help me.

I am no longer one of those people who might slip through the various and sundry cracks -- I've already fallen through; I've already lost hope.

Given that this places me squarely among the most powerless, I expect my letters and emails to self-destruct within 30 seconds of their being opened.

President Obama needs vibrant, smart, effective people around him. My smart-ass, self-pitying "story"? It doesn't inform, nor does it inspire. It whines.

The NYT tells me this morning that Obama's point man on launching health care reform legislation is Senator Max Baucus of Montana, chair of the Senate Finance Committee -- "a political shape-shifter and crafty deal maker who is not fully trusted by either party."

It sounds, cough, like a match made in heaven.

And so... bleary-eyed and very sick, I resolved to write Shadowfax's good buddy one more time, and to copy that letter to every member of the Senate Finance Committee, which -- imagine the coincidence -- is actually asking for popular feedback.

As I familiarized myself with the Finance Committee's web site, I felt rather stupid for not having known of its existence or importance before today.

Senator Baucus authored a 98-page whitepaper -- Call to Action: Health Reform 2009 -- back on November 12, 2008.

There is access provided, via video and text, to all eight Health Care Reform Hearings held thus far in 2009, and the list of witnesses is impressive.

Most importantly?

To submit comments on the Senate Finance Committee’s Health Reform Policy Options email PDF or Word files to Health_Reform@finance‐dem.senate.gov

You who have not slipped through the cracks, you who remain stolid contributing members of society -- please find the time to put your thoughts on health care reform down in the requisite technical form, and send it off to the politicians.

I've always wanted to use the phrase "It is incumbent upon..."

It is incumbent upon us all -- upon the pity-partying, upon the thriving, upon the vast majority of those who simply and steadily struggle -- to tell our stories, yes, but also to frame those stories with information and suggested guidance.

If you want to give your blogging brain a jumpstart, give some of Shadowfax's opinion pieces a good read.

Oh! Oh, my! What do you mean you don't share my liberal leftwing gay pinko points-of-view? I'm shocked. Share, then, if you will, those policy wonks you'd like to make part of the common information pool. To whom do you give a nod of the head?

*** *** ***

Well, I'm off to make friends and influence people. Maybe feed a few cats, do a little laundry.
Take morning meds (This month's medication cost? $1113.00), recharge the wheelchair, get in bed, elevate the frozen purple legs, the throbbing infected shoulder and arm. Take a few pain pills, decide whether my ballooning face (the left side only) warrants a call to my MDVIP doctor. Ponder where I will come up with the $1,327 for my monthly BCBS health insurance premium. If I get rid of telephone, internet, television, and Netflix -- will I be able to make a payment to the hospital where I am having my 6th major surgery in less than 9 months -- in just 2 weeks? Will the fact that I still owe $900 impact their willingness to accept me, yet again, as a patient? What will happen if I code again? Is it possible some doctor or nurse will decide that I shouldn't be vigorously resuscitated, being such a drain on an active and working society? No wonder I don't sleep.