So, I see that the crazy fake Christian motherfuckers for Mamon of the Movement Conservative Right shut down the Government. Well. Ain't that a fucking peach.
They followed their own inner Supply-Side Jesus, strapped on their Gucci and Prada political suicide vests like they were designer parachutes, and stage dove off the edge screaming "MORE COWBELL!!!!!" as they left their feet like overdressed lemmings. Over giving millions of Americans who have found themselves languishing on the shit end of the shit poking stick access to affordable healthcare via reasonably priced insurance.
Why did they do this? Simple. They want to fuck people... like me.
I've got a kidney stone. Or, at least, I did.
It is, or was, not legendary in size, scale, or breadth.
There will be no folk songs about it.
No fish stories in the ER with techs holding their arms out like they saw Yao Ming coming to give them a hug through the screen of the Cat Scan machine.
Let's just say it hurt. A lot.
I've had it for, give or take a few days, around two months now, I've been pain free long enough that the ER doctor thinks it is likely that I passed it, but since I never caught it in the stupid plastic and mesh screen, I cannot say for sure.
It is, or was, my first. Hopefully, it is my last.
Here's the joke. I had the pain for almost a month before I went to the ER.
Why?
I'm longterm unemployed, I have no health insurance, and I'm barely surviving.
That means that sometimes you suffer.
You gut out flu bugs that send most people to the hospital.
You don't eat when your gut hurts.
You get food poisoning at your local fast food shithole and you hug the toilet like Capt. (Correction Lt.) Dan hugged the hurricane-whipped mast of the shrimpin' ship in Forest Gump.
You deal.
Until you cannot.
People like me live not in fear of dying, or being in pain, but being hounded like Jean Valjean by collection agencies and thugs on the phone. Of having our bank accounts, if we have any, frozen and confiscated by a judge or having whatever meager earnings we might get if we get lucky and find a job garnished so it's like we are working for nothing.
I want you to understand something.
For me to go to the ER, I have to be in the shit.
A visit to the hospital means that my whole life is upended, my budget fucked up beyond all recognition.
I have to be in the shit with no hope.
Like I want to hack out my kidney with a dull butter knife to make the pain go away in the shit.
That night finally came. Four weeks ago.
You know what took my pain away?
Dilaudid. AKA Hydromorphone Hydrochloride.
It's serious shit, and I got a serious dose in the muscle of my right upper arm.
I needed Oxycontin for every single damn day of the two weeks after my 4am visit to the building that I didn't even know was a hospital, and I've lived in Henderson Nevada for almost ten years now.
I've been pain-free for ten days now.
Now, I'm sober and pain-free enough to choke down having to dig my way out of what is coming my way.
My father, who is in his late 80's, also has a kidney stone. It's the size of a grape, and he could not have passed it on his own. It would have ruined my life had I had it. A sonic machine broke it up, and he still is not completely free of the fragments and the pain the come with them. It's the 15th one he has had since his 50th birthday. He has Medicare. Medicare is a social safety net program when you don't need it, when you do it is a gift from God. It is hope. It is the freedom to know that the only thing you need to do is go get help when you need it. He felt pain, he went to the doctor. He was treated. No suffering. No hoping it goes away or isn't anything serious. He goes to the doctor and gets treated without fear of financial ruin. Fear of Harassment. Dread of things to come.
In other words, the way it should be in the richest nation on Earth.
I have no health insurance. I have to hope for charity, wait in lines, beg for mercy on the phone when they call.
I live in fear, anxiety, worry, and dread about my health.
I make compromises that seem crazy to those who have in a land of hidden have-nots and forgotten men in plain sight.
I'm the guy that the Tea Party Patriot screams "GET A JOB, YOU FUCKING BUM!!!" at when I've been looking for regular work for a long time and I'm the guy they want to take healthcare reform away from because my pain means nothing to them.
I can eat shit and die as far as they are concerned. Me and everybody like me.
As I do not have health insurance, I cannot afford to do the follow-up at the urologist in private practice. I may have passed my stone. Or it may pop out on me weeks after I thought it was already gone.
This is what you get when you are poor and without access to affordable care.
Everything is harder than it should be. To go along with it being vastly more expensive than it should be.
It's not a comforting thing, as I am in my early 40's and I'm gutting through my first "official" stone as I see my dad and his various ordeals to pass a stone. The doctor informs me that I may have passed tiny stones in the past and not known about it.
My father has had stones that have put him in intensive care before.
I've been thinking about that a lot since that night. He could be my future. Even if I do everything right, change my diet, hydrate like a fucking fish.
I'm drinking more water than I ever have in my life on a regular basis, and it might not change my genetic destiny if that is in the cards for me.
This Government Shut down is personal. It's a fuck you to me, and everybody like me, in America. We who were not born rich, lucky, or connected. We can get sick, suffer, and die.
But, thanks to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, the day will come soon where I will no longer have to live in fear if I get sick or develop a disease, or am injured in an accident.
Tonight is a reminder of what is at stake.
This is about more than just shutting down the government, it's about the kind of nation we all want to live in, and the nation that they want to take us back to kicking and screaming against our will. Why? Because somebody doing something for people like me is the most evil and vile thing that anybody can do in the richest nation on the face of the Earth? Well, fuck them. It's personal.
It's always been personal. This just drives it home.
So, I see that the crazy fake Christian motherfuckers for Mamon of the Movement Conservative Right shut down the Government. Well. Ain't that a fucking peach.
They followed their own inner Supply-Side Jesus, strapped on their Gucci and Prada political suicide vests like they were designer parachutes, and stage dove off the edge screaming "MORE COWBELL!!!!!" as they left their feet like overdressed lemmings. Over giving millions of Americans who have found themselves languishing on the shit end of the shit poking stick access to affordable healthcare via reasonably priced insurance.
Why did they do this? Simple. They want to fuck people... like me.
Fuck them all. America is never, ever going back to the place where they want to leave it.
And if this government shut-down hurts them. Good. In a game between the Teahadi and the Coward Caucus of the GOP I am rooting for injuries all around. No 'Get Well Soon' Cards for America's political suicide bombers.