healthcare and bananas

so this morning i log onto my healthcare provider, aetna, to see about getting a counselor. i'd already located one that was in network and just had to, ostensibly, call. there's this nifty link about logging on to view claims, etc. so i log on and view my claims and NONE of my labwork is covered from the last dr's visit.

now i had good healthcare up north; used to be blue cross blue sheild, which covers everything and then some. aetna apparently doesn't work the same way. i should maybe have braced myself. but i didn't because last time i went to the dr it wasn't that bad.

which makes me wonder about the bill in my in box from the hospital; do i pay it or not?

i'm not sure anymore what's making me feel ill. it does make me sick to watch dan jump through all the hoops just to see a psychiatrist, and see the county slowly light said hoops on fire. we're not tigers or lions or bears, to have to show off our paces in order to qualify, are we? it's not fair to treat people who are sick in any manner of the sort.

if you need a fricking band-aid, you don't have to apply for one at the courthouse. same should apply if i need to see a doctor for any reason. i should not have to worry about who is providing the band aid. i should not have to worry about how long it's going to take me to get one--will i bleed out before someone finds one? should i live in fear that the band aid will break my bank account?

i don't want to have to ask for help from a counselor. it's hard enough as it is to think myself into the mantra of "yes, you want to call" when i see the hoops through which others leap, blind and mute. i'm not a reformer, and i'm not a stand-up-and-fighter, but this is getting on my last nerve. i don't want to see any more faces or bills or nameless claims telling me that there's nothing i can do except for suck it up and take it.

when i was a kid in church there was always this big focus at christmas about not having enough room at the inn, and how grateful mary and joseph must have been to have been let in to use the feeding area of the cows and such. i feel like i am witness to this no room at the inn mentality, in modern times. if you need help, there should be no fear and no need for money; someone should have doors that open regardless of your status in the state.

if you can't tell, i've been pissed off about this for days, probably months. ever since dan saw his therapist, and his therapist told him to call the county, and the county told him to see a dr and call the social security administration, and he saw the dr and called the ssn and is still waiting for the county again.

why? what does it do? he needs help NOW, not tomorrow. he needs meds NOW, not three weeks from now. everything we've read indicates that bipolar people do much better in therapy when they are medicated--because it allows them control of their moods, or at least evens them out, enough to make the therapy tools useful. so what's with this ridiculous holding pattern?

i see what he's going through, and i don't even want to start. not because i know i need meds or anything; just because i don't want to have to go through the same rigamarole. in the end, i tell myself that all his trials will be worth it--he will eventually get all the things he needs to put himself together again, and he will be the better for it.

but for the time being, i see him bleeding. i see him being leached away by his inner wounds. there is nothing i can do to help him but stand by and hold gauze onto those wounds and pray that we can stanch them until the government comes around and is able to give him better treatment than this haphazard support structure that's trying to hold him up now.

i think knowing that you are just the structure, that you are part of the crutch but not feeling like you're part of the cure--that's hard. that you're just another toothpick in the barn, just another pebble in the great wall--which apparently is supported by federal laws, if you're bipolar.

where are those laws now? where are they? i want an answer. i want to call someone and say, do you see this man? do you see what his brain is doing to him? do you understand that by taping things in place, you're not damming the river? it's still here, all of it.

so for another weekend we'll sit at home and try to scrape together hope, take our minds off the inevitable delay of monday and the start of the same cycle.

for now, i'll focus on what is good--dan's running a game tonight, i have a good book to read, and if i don't go up to kitchi tomorrow for my dear friend cari's birthday, i'll get to go to the gay pride parade with my friend nathan on sunday. well, actually i'll be at the parade; nathan's marching, proud in a lavender satin cowboy hat. and for now, i'll eat my banana, because i have bananas today, and at least there's that. (: