I finished the last little bit of my antibiotics for Lyme a couple of days before NN09. This was the third round – 120 days of erythromycin and hydroxychloroquinine. I did let the quinine slide after ninety days as it was making me batshit crazy.
So today I have a seven hour layover in Chicago’s Union Station and I went to do errands with Kelly, an NN09 attendee but someone who is not a Kossack(yet). We got a mile away in the heat and humidity and suddenly everything got funny.
So here I sit, perhaps seriously unwell, twenty one months away from the last time I had health insurance, and I’m three hours from boarding a train that will take me the last 120 miles home. I ought to be in an emergency room rather than writing a blog post, and all I have to say to that is Welcome To America!
UPDATE: HOME! SAFE! 7:18 PM Central
I first got really, desperately sick in the spring of 2008. The worst of it I covered under the name One Brave Kossack, until ct caught me and spanked, then I let personal stuff slip into my diary stream.
The bulk of the problem was a kidney stone blocking my left kidney, causing my blood pressure to spike, and aggravating a small brain aneurysm I have in my speech center. I’ve got a genetic condition called polycystic kidney disease that is supposedly going to kill me by around age sixty, and one of the associated troubles is having berry aneurysms. Along with this and undiagnosed for a couple of months after the main event was Lyme disease.
I finally got Lyme treatment last fall and by January of this year I was well enough to return to work. My symptoms flared again and in April I began a 120 day course of antibiotics. Long term antibiotics use was unpleasant but it kept the Lyme at bay.
Today we got into Chicago around 9:00 – me, Kossack Ben Masel, two people from Kansas City who’s names I didn’t retain, and Kelly from Hawaii who was also at NN09, but who is not a Kossack(yet). Kelly wanted a blanket for the rest of her trip to L.A., I know the city a bit, so we went looking for the Goodwill. We made an abortive trip down Wabash, locating the citywide HQ for the operation, then hiked back to the 1200 block of west Washington. That’s 1.1 miles out, 2.3 miles crosstown to Goodwill, and then we stopped for lunch at a little sushi place. At this point it should be noted that Kelly has conscious memories of the ending of World War II and she pretty much mopped the sidewalk with me on our expedition.
I sat for a few minutes in the sushi bar and then it just washed over me; not vertigo, but this curious, whole body pulsing sensation. I felt like I was wobbling all over the place – think like Michael Fox having a good day with Parkinson’s. Kelly could detect nothing, I stood, walked, and felt a little bit unsteady. We talked about a cab but I have only so many dollars in my pocket and I’ve been much, much sicker the last twenty one months. Back into the 85F heat index we went.
We stopped at a nice, cool drug store about halfway back and I picked up SAM-e. I’ve been taking 800mg a day for joint pain and general energy – that’s a big problem with Lyme – and I ran out the last day of NN09. I don’t think missing one dose explains the troubles I’m having, but I needed to stock up anyway. Feeling wobbly and all in the checkout lane, but not worried/fearful, I pulled a tolerable Natarajasana for a somewhat sedentary middle aged guy. I don’t feel balance, but I seem to have a goodly supply of it.
This has been two hours now, I’m sitting in a perfectly stable chair in the food court, and it feels like I’m on a mid-sized yacht – a constant, rolling sensation. My heart rate is normal, historically it’s been pretty obvious to me when my blood pressure is anywhere above about 120/80, and I’m in no pain ... it’s just strange.
What’s also strange is how we do things in this country. I might qualify for a public option in Illinois because I’ve got this kidney thing and it’s on the automatic approve list, except the state’s books are closed due to the budget crisis here. Kelly has Medicare and if she’d have made similar complaints I’d have hustled her butt into a taxi and headed for the nearest hospital doubletime. Unlike me, she wouldn’t get a bill for two months pay due to having something genuinely needing an inspection in the E.R.
If I didn’t have the kidney condition that seems to be the gateway to automatic coverage (when the state isn’t facing a budget crisis) I’d have the same sort of junk insurance I had a couple of years ago – go in, give the card, then the game of sticking me with the bill despite having paid the premium would begin.
So ... my health care is rationed (0%), I'm facing the death panel (hopefully not imminent), and I just came from a Progressive meeting of the minds that is focusing its full energy on a corrupt Congress that cares more for murdering, thieving corporations than their own constituents, despite the fact that ejecting the parasitic health insurance industry would simultaneously improve care while lowering cost. What's it going to take for me to have what citizens in EVERY OTHER FREAKIN' DEVELOPED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD TAKE FOR GRANTED?!?!?!?!
(CODA: As a nation we're going to be re-inventing ourselves ... but not if we're lashed to the railings of sinking corporate liners with the bonds of health care. What would happen if I had service here in Iowa but had taken sick in Pittsburgh? We must have a coherent national plan to address health care, not an underfunded, state by state patchwork.)
(UPDATE:
Just found this in my Flickr - Kelly is seated at the far right. Not sure who the rest of these clowns are :-) 3:32 PM now, train leaves in 33 minutes, so I'm going to get in line. Will be off grid for the next three hours or so, feeling slightly better than I was a bit ago, will check in when I get home.