Gratitude * Sunday
Quote of the Week
“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” Mahatma Gandhi
Sunday Haiku
Blackberries perish before ripening, dying red to dead, not black.
Sunday Musings
Once again, I have comments on the state of health care in the United States of America.
It sucks. Mostly. Let me clarify.
Doctors and nurses, health care providers, mental health care providers, and medical facilities seem to me to be doing the best they can with their educated guesses, constant new technology, and questionable pharmaceuticals many of which aren’t even as old as I am.
Insurance companies are busy ripping us off and denying us medical care in the name of greedy profit. I want to know who made them doctors. Medical care we’ve pre-paid (Medicare is pre-paid medical insurance, but they don’t want us to think of it that way) doesn’t cover everything we need. Medicare is rigged with a 20% out-of-pocket expense as an institutionalized form of racism; it was originally thought the out-of-pocket expense would kill African-Americans as they would not be able to afford the 20%. Then it killed poor white people as well, but that’s another essay.
At my age, I’ve had enough lived medical experience to compare now with the past. I’m also taking the privilege of saying what I think would work better than the system we have. It seems absolutely obvious to me what we have worked for and earned as American workers and citizens. If we are to be good workers and good producers and good citizens, we need good health care.
At the very least, we deserve the same health care as our tax-paid representatives who have premium health care on our dime. I wouldn’t mind that at all, if we all had the same care.
So, established Medicare has a 20% out of pocket, but why in the world do they not cover dental, hearing, and vision? Because they want old people, people of color, and poor people to die out of the system? They don’t want us to drive or eat? I can see why they wouldn’t want us to speak, but workers need to see what they are working on, including reading instructions or other pertinent data, and workers need to eat to be able to work. Even us retired ones who have paid into this insurance all our lives, and are still paying premiums after retirement, need to eat and drive and read. As volunteers we are still contributing citizens in this United States of America.
What brought on this rant this week? I had a tooth extracted. Not only have I lost a wad of cash out of my budget, I feel like I have lost a part of my self. I paid money to have less of me, to lose something I was born with. I miss that tooth. I cannot afford to have a replacement tooth installed, and don’t trust having more metal in my mouth, or something drilled into my jawbone.
Had I been able to afford to restore the tooth fifteen years ago when it first started breaking, I might still have it. It has crumbled along with the years, each time producing a new spiked configuration my tongue could not resist investigating. A crown might have prevented that. Then again, last year I had to have a tooth extracted that had been restored yet rotted underneath the crown. Teeth are so difficult. You only get one natural set, baby teeth being semi-permanent, to last your lifetime.
One positive thing: the extraction removed one more source of mercury from my mouth. This was old mercury from when I was a kid in grade school, when the percentage of mercury was higher in the silver amalgam mixture. When I took basic chemistry in college in my 40s, I learned about metals mixed with acids, and how they can create reactions. Searching for better health I learned metals in dental restorations placed in an acid solution like saliva can be the source of health problems, in other words, an iatrogenic case of one doctor (dentist) fixing something in the body (mouth) that creates other physical or mental challenges in the body that other physicians don’t see as related to the metal in one’s mouth.
We cannot behave as if the mouth exists somewhere outside the body. Most people have an assortment of metal in their mouths, and it’s only in the past few years dentists have anything close to full disclosure. I, for example, have silver, mercury, copper, tin, gold, and likely other metals in my mouth some of which I’ve carried for more than 60 years. I am a virtual walking battery, and you never know when I might spark off, or when the sparks might damage other parts of the body.
It would have been so comforting to know the financial part of this stressful physical situation was covered by the insurance I’ve paid into for so many years. Financial stress is as bodily painful as any other body challenge. I’m one of those poor, responsible people; I like to pay my bills because the burden of them hanging over my head is too much for me to bear physically.
While I am dealing with my mouth this week, my heart is distressed for the son. Both lungs collapsed, and he’s now had surgery on both. He’s not home yet; he’s been in the hospital more than two weeks. This is his first major physical ordeal. He was just launching and bam! A BIG setback. We think he is going to survive well, but it’s like starting all over again. He’s a victim of generational poverty, was trying to work and support his family, and at least he and family are covered by Medicaid, in Oregon called the Oregon Health Plan, or OHP. I keep begging him to get his teeth fixed while he has OHP because they cover everything. I don’t like this phrase, but trust me on this: your teeth are a major part of your health.
Somewhere between running up to the hospital and caring for my granddaughter so the son’s partner can see him, I tweaked my back. I’m taking ibuprofen for my painful jaw already; here come the ice packs. I learned a long time ago you can’t lie down and stop doing life with most back pain; either you keep going and use those muscles back into shape or the pain will get worse. Some weeks are just more fun than others.
I am grateful I’m not having more pain in my mouth than I am. “It could be worse,” is not all that comforting a phrase when one is in any kind of pain, but I’m grateful it isn’t. I am grateful the son is still kicking, lightly, but kicking. I’m grateful we have some kind of health care. Just saying it could be way better. If I were queen with a magic wand…
Color Watch – colorful attractions in my neighborhoods this week – A fat pink rose.
A fatter yellow dahlia.
I’m enamored by star jasmine and want one outside my bedroom window.
Current View – {These are only my opinions about movies and books, but don’t let me stop you from trying these reviewed items yourself; your opinion may differ.} Because I have just watched the other parts of the Breaking Bad series, I had to do a second view of El Camino (2019, rated TV – MA), to find out what happened to Jesse after Walt saved him and he escaped. If that’s a spoiler you are even further out of the loop than I am.
Currently Reading – Fight Club (1996, fiction) by Chuck Palahniuk. When I was at university in 1996, I got to hear Chuck read from his novel just after it was published. I didn’t read the book at the time. I thought it might have too much violence or be too “guy-ish” for me. I forgot to take a book to my son’s home, and it was the only novel that interested me in their collection. Seems perfect while dealing with a bloody mouth and back pain. The novel is very different than my pre-conceptions, so much so I might watch the movie after I finish the book.
This week I have been grateful for:
- My own bed.
- My privacy when I need to be nakey.
- Helping a friend get back into the pool.
- The son doing so well for what he’s been through.
- Being able to keep the house reasonably temperate.
- Staying inside during the heat, except the few minutes to hang clothes in the morning.
- Watching airdrying clothes sway in the breeze.
- Getting a new lighter weight hose for watering my plants in the evening. Felt like I was hauling around a ball and chain. It’s a metaphor; I do not have prison experience. Grateful.
- Spending time with my 2.5 yo granddaughter. They are only small for a short time.
- Baby loving to read, one of gma’s specialties.
- The lip balm my niece makes.
- Naan bread, soft enough to eat while jaw is healing.
- Chocolate croissants. Same.
- Water.
Hoping you have a lovely week.
Namaste. Peace. Blessings.
Floral ribbon border by Laurel Burch
Sassy Kas 