Hair and Other Things

Since my blip of my Dragon Age Inquisition avatar of myself was blipped, there've been conversations about my hair and my eyes. I already replied to comments with pictures of my eyes, and back blipped pictures of me with long hair over the last couple years.

Well, here's a new picture of my hair. Please note, that while yes, I am fat, I'm not as fat as I look in this picture. My overshirt decided to open up wider around me.

My hair is about at my hips. My overshirt goes down past the seat of my jeans because I'm very short (5'1") so it makes my hair look a bit shorter in comparison to my body. Also, I don't know how well the thinner ends of my hair are visible. (We tend to refer to them as 'wisps' because they move with the slightest amount of airflow and also seem to have a mind of their own and do what they want.)

Warning: The following contains harsh language and is a very depressing glimpse at the reality of a disabled American trying to get healthy.

So yesterday I had another shitty encounter with American Health Care.


My blip yesterday was posted in the morning and I didn't want to ruin the feel of it by editing my journal entry to include what happened later on in the day.

I have an abcess in my groin area. It's against a tendon. It hurts like hell. It makes standing, walking, and sitting very painful. It doesn't hurt as much when lying down. The other day I was able to drain quite a bit of stagnent blood from it, which relieved a lot of pressure against the tendon, but it still hurts and is still a big concern.

It took several days for us to find a time that we could go to the doctor's to have it looked at.

I went to do a walk-in at the clinic.

But because apparently I owe two copays (one I know I paid, the other I was never asked for and I asked the cashier about it and was waved away) totalling $40, I wasn't allowed to be seen by a doctor.

Yes. That's right. An infected abcess, causing me pain and making it hurt to walk, is going to go ignored by the doctors over forty fucking dollars.

This is what happens when medical care is based widely on capitalism and you let those in the profession get greedy.

I really believe there should be a cap to how much money medical professionals should earn, to keep out the people who are looking to get rich and keep in the people that truly care about helping others and improving lives.

So yeah. Because I can't afford $40 fucking dollars I can't be seen by a doctor.

Oh, and now they aren't refilling two medications that I desperately need. One of which I'll run out of in two days, and I'll end up in the emergency room over what the consequences of running out of that medication.

Which will cost me about $1400 in a hospital bill.

Which will add to my $30,000 or somesuch debt due to medical bills.

That's not even including the $13,000 the government is trying to bleed from me for backpayment of the disability they feel they overpaid me when they cut me off. Even though I'm still just as disabled as I was when I started getting disability. In fact, I'm actually more disabled now.

The other medication I have about two weeks left of. If I run out of that medication? My pulse will skyrocket and I'll be at a very high risk for having a stroke.

B works his ass off to support me. I feel like nothing but a burden to him.

I can't afford to live. I can't even afford to survive, which is all I'm (barely) managing to do.

I make jewellery and I crochet scarves to try to sell, but people want them for free. They don't want to pay for them.

I try and try to bring in anything I can to try to relieve the pressure on B to provide for me. But I just can't. All I end up doing is costing B more and more money.

All I want is to get healthy enough to actually do something with my life! I want to work! I want to be able to provide for myself!

But instead I'm trapped in this worthless system of shitty healthcare, capitalism, and I can't get healthy. I don't have any options other than to remain unhealthy and slowly die from the infections and other conditions that ravage my body constantly because I can't afford to have them treated and because doctors here also refuse to believe that after over a decade of pretty much rotting alive, that you might possibly know your body a little better than they do after only having walked into the room with you three seconds ago.

No. I'm not being dramatic. This is my reality.