poeticdesires

Category: Healthcare

  • I’m Done

    I was already a little peeved.

    I had waited for five minutes for the assistant to come into my room and check my vitals, a long delay that had previously never happened.

    And then I waited on the exam table, naked with my gown opening facing backwards, for another ten minutes for my GYN nurse to come in, again a new occurrence.

    And then my GYN and I had this exchange:

    “Yes, it’s my yearly checkup and I want a full STI panel.”
    “Has it been a year?”
    “The last time I came was for an STI screening six months ago.”
    “Right, cause if that had been a year then it flew by. Kristen, how much does your STI screening cost?”
    “With the few bills I get from the lab, about $150.”
    “Is that covered by insurance?”
    “No.”
    “You know negative to positive test results take six months to occur.”
    “Yes, that’s why I get tested every six months.”
    “But it costs so much money. And getting tested that often. Have you had any new partners?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, okay then.”

    I know she was just trying to “look out for me”, albeit in a condescending I’m-older-I-know-better-than-you manner. I know she was thinking of the financial burden of my twice yearly testing.

    But I walked out of the office pissed. And I’m still pissed.

    I don’t talk to my GYN about my life because she comes off as very judgey.

    When I mentioned once that I’d had three new partners since she last saw me, I got the are-you-okay talk.

    As if fucking three new guys in six months was a lot. As if my deciding to fuck three (it was more than three) men was somehow a symptom of a problem.

    This was the same GYN who, after I broke up with my boyfriend, went on a small diatribe about black men and how culturally they don’t want to commit to relationships.

    My GYN nurse is white. She had been married to, but was now divorced from, a black man.

    So no, I’ve never told my GYN that I’m a slut. I’ve never told her that I jaunt off on BDSM vacations with the intention of finding fun with whomever however we choose.

    I didn’t tell her that in fact, since I last saw her, I’ve had about six new partners, ranging in sexual activity from just kissing to fisting to PIV fucking.

    I don’t think that part should matter.

    In my opinion, what should matter is her patient asked for an STI screening, so she damn well better give it and that be that. No opinions, no probing questions, no muss or fuss. She is not my therapist; she is definitely not Doc.

    Why would a licensed medical practitioner try to dissuade an adult from an STI screening? It just seems so irresponsible.

    Twice a year I give blood and my vaginal swabs get screened for a few more tests. Twice a year I make sure I am healthy, that I am safe for my partners (new and old) to play with. Twice a year I do my part to be a responsible kinkster, but more importantly a responsible adult.

    I think today was my last visit to my GYN. She was great when I was young and just starting out in my sexual journey. Now it just feels like I’m beyond her.

    Actually, more correctly, she is not who I need, nor who I want.

    I’m done.

  • Religion and Reproduction

    This is a straight-up rant. This post isn’t meant to be sexy. It’s not specifically about sex, or fucking, or all the fun things my life occasionally entails. Fun Fact: In high school I was voted Most Opinionated. Here is a taste of why.

    [Side note: I was also voted Most Boy Crazy. Snicker as you wish.]

    NEWS FLASH: Catholics use birth control. Jews use birth controls. Muslims, Buddhists, and even Atheists use birth control. And you know what, that is just one of their many rights as American citizens.

    In various religions, it is against their most conservative practices to use condoms, the pill, the patch, the ring, the matchstick, and/or the morning after pill. But you know what, people still use them.

    Why?

    Because condoms help against spreading disease. Because some women don’t want to get pregnant. Because sex is fun and is often enjoyed for more than procreation. Because I wouldn’t want to have the child of my rapist. Or my cousin. Or my father. Because, as Americans, it is our right to choose.

    I can’t help but be pissed when I hear Republican Presidential candidates equate the new healthcare rule concerning contraception coverage to an assault against religious freedom. Unless someone is removing the pills from their dispenser and shoving them down your throat, there is no assault on religious freedom.

    You know what is an assault that involves religion? Trying to force your views and practices on people who do not share your beliefs, namely your employees who want to prevent pregnancy but can’t because you refuse to cover the medication in their healthcare plans.

    This mess has less to do with religion and more to do with women’s reproductive rights. But conservatives don’t want to talk about that. Women don’t have sex for fun. What am I talking about? Meanwhile, those of you who’ve read my blog, or yah know have had hands on practice, know that thinking is utter bullshit.

    The new healthcare rule is, in fact, a step to give women more freedom with their reproductive rights.

    Hey Catholic hospital, you’re a fucking hospital first! Hey Catholic college, you’re a fucking college first! And you know what? Plenty of your employees aren’t fucking Catholic!

    So yes, you need to cover this portion of their healthcare in your plans just like you cover vasectomies and Viagra. And even if an employee is Catholic or Jewish or Muslim, they get to choose what goes into their body, if they want to use condoms, or have sex for fun, or prevent a pregnancy, whether from a lover or from a rapist.

    I get so sick and tired of members of the right spouting bullshit trying to trump up the vote. This time they’re speaking to misogynists who still believe they have a say in what I do with my body. It’s my fucking body, assholes. Step the fuck off!

    Mitt Romney, while governor of Massachusetts, passed a law requiring Catholic hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims.

    Please, re-read that last statement.

    It is important because of a few choice points: 1- If the law was created, it usually means they had to make it in the first place, as in Catholic hospitals were NOT offering emergency contraception to rape victims. (Lemonade moments in-fucking-deed) 2- Romney is a fucking opportunist hypocrite, criticizing the President on reproductive rights after having signed into law similar rights in his own state. & 3- What the fuck, Catholic hospitals!?! Seriously, what the fuck!?!

    I was baptized Catholic, and reached my first communion before my mother converted to Baptist. I went to a Catholic middle and high school. I went to a public college. I call myself Christian because I believe there is something greater than myself. Call it God. Call it the essence that is life. There is something.

    But you know one thing I did learn while suffering through Religion classes I gave little to no weight to: There was this cool guy named Jesus who, if he were alive today, would be a Socialist. Feeding the poor. Healing the sick. You’re probably going to hell if you’re rich. And, shit, keeping the wine flowing and the party going. Cool guy.

    One part about this current “debate” that I find incredibly disturbing is the Quiverfull movement. First, no birth control whatsoever? Not even the rhythm method? Scary. But beyond that, the idea that you can have enough children to eventually out populate the left/liberals/Democrats, and thereby usher our country into a conservative utopia, downgrades women into baby making machines, children into votes, and liberty and freedom into just buzz words.

    But hey, why am I surprised? I’m a black woman and a bleeding heart liberal. It isn’t like this country has been so welcoming of my kind, even if I was born here.

    [Fun fact: go Google ‘Mississippi apendectomy’. I just learned about this a few months ago. This country is so fucked up.]

    /rant

  • Care

    I spent most of today in a hospital. I came to the need of a friend, sat by their side through the slowest waiting room ever, many doctors, many nurses, more waiting, and lots of questions. In the end, my friend was discharged with no new answers but much less pain.

    It is a cliche to say that people have negative feelings around hospitals. But, for me, the first half of my life was spent in hospitals. My mother is a medical secretary. I’ve heard stories of me falling asleep under her desk, waiting for her to get off work. From sixth to eighth grade, I walked from my school to the hospital and waited in the lobby for her til 5:30pm. I did my homework, listened to my Walkman, purchased snacks in the cafe, candy from the gift shop, sometimes wrote, and often napped. I had a couch that almost everyday was my couch. That hospital was warm and inviting to me, a comfort.

    That feeling began to change my freshman year of high school. Uncles died in a hospital. I visited him only once. By then he had shrunk, withered to almost nothing, just skin and bones. He died at about age 90. Our visit with him, my only visit with him in the hospital, was his last before his passing.

    Granddaddy was next. We called 9-1-1 after he had an apparent stroke in our home. It took two or three men to get him down the stairs and out the front door. We waited in the emergency room for half the night until he was admitted and my mother took us home. He survived that ordeal but his life was forever altered.

    He was no longer the big, strong, imposing man who had picked me up from elementary school, carried me in his arms down the hill for my birthday party, and occasionally squeezed my knee. His first night back at home both my mother and I had to clean him up after he soiled himself. He died my senior year of high school, while I was on spring break in Puerto Rico. His funeral was the day I came back. I am still so very thankful my mother saved me from that experience.

    Aunties passed my junior year in college. She too wasted away until no one could deny she needed to go to the hospital. And, once again, my visit with her was one of her last.

    And then there was Ella.

    I don’t fear hospitals. It’s just I haven’t been there for happy moments since my childhood. I didn’t attend my niece’s birth. And, save new life, are there any other happy reasons to go to the hospital?

    When someone is sick, when you are tasked to care for them, everything in your life is brought into perspective. So many things seem insignificant, little, petty. Every move, every thought, is full of awkward anxiety. Remembering everything I wanted to do today, and figuring out when I could do it later on in the week. Wondering how long the ordeal would last. How bad it would get. Hoping it would get no worse.

    When I drop into the mindset of caregiver, I often drown out most of my thoughts or any inclinations for myself. I skipped breakfast and didn’t eat lunch today til 2pm because I worried about leaving my friend’s side. I snuck in a work email while they slept only because I was a day late in responding. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I kept myself awake just in case. I didn’t dare pull out my book until they informed us of the impending discharge.

    And, just now, I got a phone call. In my mind, all I could think was, “Please may it not be from X. Please may they still be okay.”

    I worry. SkinnyBitch tells me I worry too much and should stop. If I knew how, I would.

    For now, distraction. Yoga, shower, playing with the dog, and Happy Hour. However I’ll have my cell phone always by my side, hoping it doesn’t ring, but still there just in case.

  • In Other News

    So, anybody read the paper or watched the news lately?  Because if you haven’t, you’ve been missing out on “Armageddon” and “Waterloo” NOT occurring.  What did happen was the President saw the center piece of his political agenda get passed, and people scared to death by the Republican Party started acting crazy. 

    A few ‘for instances’:
    1) Rep. Barney Frank being called a faggot,
    2) multiple African American Representatives, including one who sturggled through the Civil Rights movement, being called niggers,
    3) bricks thrown through offices of Representatives, &
    4) Representatives and their families threatened with violence and death, including the posting of actual addresses (though not all of them accurate) and a protest planned at one Representative’s house (his actual home state residence, where his wife and kids live).

    Yes, America, this is the country we live in.  The President signed a piece of legislation that covers 30 million more Americans, providing health insurance to people like me who would have difficulty getting it otherwise, and people are acting crazy.  “Death Panels” and “pulling the plug on Grandma” are coming home to roost.

    I actually didn’t want to spend this post on the passing of the bill, momentous as it is, because so many people are talking about it already.  But, when such violent acts occurr and it seems no one on the Right is actually, sincerely, trying to stop it, I get angry. 

    People were called unAmerican when they opposed the Iraq War, but you didn’t see us throw bricks through windows or threaten death to House members.  And yet the Right has the nerve to compare Tea Party protesters swarming the Captiol steps, spitting on a Representative and yelling out hateful epithets, to the war protests on the Left.  How naive can you be?

    Here is the biggest difference between the Left’s protests then and the Right’s protests now: Americans died in Iraq because of Bush Administration lies & people were tortured and died due to their deceits, while people would die every day due to Obama Administration inaction on healthcare.  And yet, the Right implicitly condones the actions of its outlayers.  It all just makes me sick. 

    After what I’ve seen of the Republican party this past 15 months, I don’t understand how anyone can morally live with themselves and be on the Right.  The Left has worked to stimulate the economy, tried to allow gays to openly serve in the military, signed S-CHIP into law, passed a Fair Pay Act, and genuinely worked to make this country better.  The Right has opposed them at every turn.  The party of No thinks the efforts the Left put forth are too over-reaching, believes the actions go too far, sees the problems of this country as too big to fix with just legislation.  Republicans, if you didn’t think you could do the job, why did you bother getting elected?  Government is for the big boys, not the babies.  Go ahead and keep crying in the corner.  Let the adults do the real work of running the country.

    I was proud of my President Sunday; I was proud of the Congress and especially Nancy Pelosi for getting the bill passed.  No, I was not happy about the Executive Order, nor was I pleased there wasn’t a Public Option or a Medicare Buy-In (my preferred choice, considering I’m currently paying through COBRA about the same amount it would cost me).  But, and this is a huge but, our lives are so much better today than they were last week.  When I have a child(ren?), I will be able to tell them about how, in the past, Mommy was without insurance and she had to pay $1700 to fix one tooth.  Or how Daddy owed a hospital $10,000 because he had an appendicitis.  And I will be able to say how happy I am my child(ren?) will never have to face those difficulities. 

  • Letter To My Senator

    Recently a letter has been floating around the Senate. It’s a pledge to pass the Public Option through budget reconciliation, a Parliamentary maneuver and way to bypass filibusters. It is the way CHIP (The Children’s Health Insurance Program) & COBRA (what I now have) were passed, along with FIVE Bush era tax cuts and multiple amendments to Medicare & Medicaid.

    After doing some research on the internet, I found out one of the two Senators in my state had not yet signed the pledge. I called his office asking why. The nice lady on the phone said she had no information as to why he had not signed, but assured me my Senator supported the Public Option.

    I, in turn, sent him a letter (email through his contact page). It reads as follows:

    Senator,

    Recently I heard 22 Senators have signed a letter pledging to pass the public option through budget reconciliation, including your Senate counterpart. I’m contacting you to ask why you have not signed as well.

    Republicans in the Senate have worked to block almost all legislation and reform, including the public option. I, as one who would seek to use this new government program, want your support to bypass a Republican filibuster and pass the public option by reconciliation.

    I know your job is far from easy. I know you have pressures I could not imagine. But Sir, I, along with many others in your state, need the public option.

    I’ve applied for heath insurance multiple times through the individual market and have been rejected due to my weight. Currently I work multiple part time jobs, making me ineligible for group coverage. I had group coverage at an old job, but in December of 2008 I accepted a new position with the promise of health insurance benefits. They never came. Recently, I was let go from the new position. I still pay my high COBRA premium, $435 a month, but that leaves me with less money for all my other bills.

    The public option is the best way for me to seek insurance coverage I know will not be taken away, nor include premiums that can be raised to obscene amounts. My COBRA coverage runs out at the end of May. I will then apply for the statewide high risk pool, known as MHIP, as a last effort to keep insurance coverage. No one should ever have to worry about loosing health insurance. The public option would make this so.

    Sir, the public option is for people like me, not in perfect health, but still wanting health insurance in case the worst happens.

    Sir, please support us, and sign the letter pledging to use reconciliation for the public option.

    Lets see if/how my Senator responds.

  • Resist The Urge To Turn Pussy

    Congressional Democrats, the shit we all saw coming has finally arrived. Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts today and will soon be the new junior Senator, thereby extinguishing your paper thin filibuster proof majority.

    Now, I know there are some of you who will see this as a reason to stop pushing for reform. You believe this election was a referendum on all you’ve tried to do this past year. Do me a favor: Resist The Urge To Turn Pussy.

    Martha Coakley lost the election because she ran a piss poor campaign. She believed the primary was her battle, and has since sat back, barely acknowledging her opponent. So, when Scott Brown did surge, because people are pissed now and he espoused fake populism, Coakley’s campaign was not prepared to react. And besides, no way was a Republican going to win Teddy Kennedy’s seat. Guess what, lazy Democrats up there in Massachusetts, it just happened.

    I say all this as 1) a lesson to anyone running for office; never take your constituency for granted.

    And 2) This was not a referendum on health reform. Let me repeat that: THIS WAS NOT A REFERENDUM ON HEALTH REFORM. This was the case of a lazy chick thinking she had already been crowned the new Senator from Massachusetts just because she’s a Democrat.

    So, to the main point of tonight’s ranting: Resist The Urge To Turn Pussy. This is not the time to back down. For the past months, you’ve tried to bring in your veto proof majority, only to almost run out of time. You’ve acquiesced, you’ve brokered deals, you’ve sucked out most of the life in the health reform package. So, now that you have an excuse to kick your asses into gear, I propose two courses of action.

    1) The sensible, and, might I add, kind of close to pussy thing to do, would be for the House to just pass the Senate bill. If the Progressives choke down the piece of shit, which has no public option and its means of payment kind of screws the pooch, the matter is done. If I were in office, and in a desperate mood, this would probably be the path I would take. Wham, bam, thank you Ma’am; we have health reform.

    Now, seeing as I’m not desperate, and in fact am in a full throttle, balls to wall kind of mindset, I would choose the second option:
    2) Like I said last night, Fuck ‘Em. Time for budget reconciliation baby. Little Bush used it to push his tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s about time the Democrats used it for something more, what’s the word…moral, humane, ethically justified, greatly needed in a country where as many as 45 million people lack basic coverage, 1 million go bankrupt every year from health related bills, and 45,000 people a year DIE because they lack health insurance.

    Yeah, that’s what I would do. But then again, I’m not an elected official. But I am a person who votes. Keep that in mind.

    As I’ve shared on this blog, I was recently laid off. And of course it was a shock. However, looking back on it now, I could’ve seen it coming. There were signs the company was not in the best shape and, as the saying goes, “Last hired, first fired.” So, I get it.

    I mention this incidence in my life because I see a parallel to Congressional Democrats’ situation now. Because you weren’t paying attention, because you took the Massachusetts Senate seat for granted, you lost it.

    I also say this because Congressional Democrats have the opportunity to do what I did: take this as a kick in the ass and start doing what you should’ve been doing in the first place. Push your agenda forward. Work more, harder. Make health reform a reality, with or without sixty votes. You have the ability to do it. Now it only takes the testicular fortitude.

    Congressional Democrats: Resist The Urge to Turn Pussy & finish what we elected you to do.

  • Man Up Or Shut Up

    I am so sick and tired of people putting all this importance and pressure on the Massachusetts Senate race. Face it DNC: you fucked up. You chose the wrong candidate for the position, didn’t realize her level of unawares about the most basic of Boston knowledge (namely that Kurt Schilling is NOT a Yankee fan), discovered her inability to run well most inopportunely (famously her snarky comment about not wanting to stand outside a ballpark and shake people’s hands), and you waited until too late to bring in the President for aid. YOU FUCKED UP.

    Lets be honest: Massachusetts doesn’t give a flying fuck about national health reform. They have a better system than the one on the table in Washington, so if it passes or fails, it won’t matter in the least to them. And, frankly, tell me a way Brown has fucked up in this campaign, past centerfolds aside.

    DNC: Ya’ll screwed the pooch royally with this one and a Democratic seat for over thirty years is about to turn red. If Teddy isn’t rolling over in his grave, he’s probably banging on the casket door so he can get out and whoop some ass.

    But, beyond this little kerfuffle, one Senator shouldn’t matter. In case we all have “New President Amnesia”, our past Commander-in-Chief was able to push through legislation without the super-majorities the Democrats now have.

    So what, you’re about to loose one Senate seat. Grow a set of balls and make the shit work. Force the Republicans to filibuster. Dare them to, in fact. Footage of any of them on the floor of Congress, blocking sweeping change that would aid 30 million American, is just what ya’ll will need for 1) public outrage to force them to stop &/or 2) re-election ads for the upcoming mid-terms.

    Republicans are currently the party of no, but when did the Democrats become the party of bend over? Your counterparts have screwed you basically from jump this legislative session. They were united against the stimulus in the House. Only one member, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, voted for the House’s health bill. In the Senate, not one voted for the Health overhaul and only Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, and, now Democrat, Arlen Specter voted for the stimulus. They’re blocking nominations just cause they want to, and no one seems to have the guts to knock a few heads and twist a few arms.

    Why has no one pulled the Chairmanship card with Lieberman? It’s this simple: We don’t care how you vote in the final ballot, but you vote with us on procedures or we’ll take your spot. DONE. One opportunistic man’s vote secured. Seriously, we spent so much time on that fool, I wanted to throttle both him and the people that bothered to listen to his senile rantings.

    Democratic party, members of the House & Senate, Mr. President: you just have to say FUCK ‘EM. Push your agenda, make them work their games, and when the American people ask who killed health reform, show footage of their threatened filibuster. When a citizen asks why their child was dropped from their family plan, show them pictures of Rep. Boehner & Rep. Cantor, Sen. McConnell & Sen. Grassley, red in the face from reading David Copperfield all night. Tell them, “I pushed for reform, but these people just worked to screw you.”

    Care more about the people you represent than trying to get reelected, and, for once, tell the people the God’s honest truth: Republicans don’t give a flying fuck about Americans. They just do what their donors tell them.

  • Always in the Car

    My morning has not been fun. I will explain.

    As many of you know, yesterday was election day. I was only half interested in the results, seeing as my county did not hold elections. Last night I signed onto Twitter and found through a link an up-to-date posting of results. I went to bed knowing a few things: 1) Virginia still sucks and I refuse to ever live there, 2) Maine was too close to call, 3) NJ you disappointed me, & 4) NY was a split decision that I planned to think about later.

    So this morning on the way to work, my SO & I were as usual stuck in rush hour traffic. And unfortunately, he was not asleep. The radio was all a buzz with elections results. No matter where we turned, it seemed we could not get away from it. So finally, we turned the radio off.

    Of all the races last night, the one that bothered me the most was for NYC mayor. Before this past election, I had no real opinion on Michael Bloomberg. I knew he was rich and a Republican, but neither of those things in and of themselves would lend me to an opinion on him. But, learning about how he won reelection really irked me. And I said as much to my SO.

    I spoke about how sad a state of affairs this world has to be in when money and power can still take one so far and accomplish so much. That a man could outright lie, use his political power to push his own future agenda, and basically treat an elected position like his toy reminded me too much of Iran and Afghanistan elections. It just didn’t sit well.

    So I say this and, rather than just a head nod from my SO, he starts talking, saying something along the lines of, “Well of course money can do that.” And I cut him off. I literally said, “Stop. Please stop talking because you are just going to get me mad. Please just stop.”

    This situation created what one might expect: TENSION. I drove on for a few minutes, the car silent except for the engine revs, when my SO pipes up to say, “You know, I’m indifferent to many things. People, politics, etc. But what you just said is not cool, not at all.” Me, being me, retorted with, “I knew what you were about to say and it would have only served to make me mad. What would you have me do, just sit here angry at you?” His response, “Well, I’m sitting here angry at you now.” Needless to say, that ended the conversation. I refused to look at him and cried a little, not out of sadness, but out of frustration and a bit of rage.

    My take on the situation? (And mind you, I am very biased.)

    Sometimes I just want to rant. Sometimes I don’t want, need, require or desire another person’s opinion. Sometimes I just want to vent, have the statements in my head become words out of mouth, let them rest in the air around me, take a deep breath out, and just let it be. Sometimes, the best thing in the world for me is just a head nod. But my SO doesn’t seem to get this.

    I guess this will be one of the things I bring up tonight when we talk about it. He called, just a few minutes ago, asking, “What now?” I said I thought we should use the day to cool off and then come back and talk. He seemed to be okay with that.

    The other part of this scenario which is also disrupting my cool: his combination apathy & snark. He says he’s indifferent to the world. In my head, that means he doesn’t care about anything, leaving me to wonder if he cares about me: how I feel, my life, our relationship, etc.

    His apathy also angers me because I believe it is this country’s apathy on issues that cause so many problems, for instance healthcare reform. When I went to my Senator’s Town Hall meeting, but ended up instead walking around and talking to protectors, I found a lot of opposition to Healthcare reform rested in the hands of apathetic people. Now, obviously they were not apathetic when it came to being taxed or inconveniencing them in any way. But they were apathetic to some of the people this reform was targeting: the poor, the down trodden, the people that bag their groceries or wait on them in the drive through lane. They couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

    To me, apathy is just as bad, if not worse, than opposition. 50% of this country doesn’t vote. That is half of the citizens of this nation not caring about how their lives are impacted by the people who represent them in government, along with whatever proposals they wish to make, laws this wish to pass, restrictions or freedoms they wish to impart. So yes, I’m not a fan of apathy. I think it is too easy an excuse for not manning up and taking a stand on ANYTHING in life.

    Snark, however, is something different. My SO seems to love it, like I do at times, but I rarely point it his way. It seems to me, each time this has happened (me getting upset on his commenting when I vent), I’ve just wanted someone to listen, but he then challenges me on my words. The time to challenge me is not when I’m in an emotional state. My SO being quippy with me does not encourage me; instead, it turns my emotions not on the situation but on my SO. All of a sudden, he becomes the target of my ill feelings, and this is not a good thing, at all. I end up wanting to curse or hit him, driving too fast or dangerously, and basically not having a good time.

    So that was/is where my head rests now. For the remainder of the trip, about 25 minutes, we didn’t speak to each other. In these situations, it is usually me who breaks the silence. I’m usually the one who tries to restart things, come to a consensus, and get us in a better place before I drop him off at work. Today, I refused. Sometimes, I’m just tired of being the adult in the relationship. For goodness sack, he’s 38 years old. Why is someone 12 years older not the mature person in this partnership?

    I suspect this evening’s talk will be fine. I will try to explain to him that sometimes I just need him to listen, and NOT comment. And maybe that will be the end of this spat. Either way, I’ll let you know.

  • Elbow Photos

    Here is a close up of my first sling configuration and a shot of the offending elbow.

    Here is a shot of the second, and frankly better, sling currently in use. I knotted the rope, making a large loop, and placed it over my head. The knot is below my right arm while the top of the sling is on my left shoulder. This spreads the weight of my arm across my chest and is easier to get in and out of, say when I had to drive last night to pick up my SO from work.

    And here is the wrap currently on my elbow. My SO did a MUCH better job of placing it last night before bed, but I had to take it off sometime this morning to give my skin a chance to breathe. It’s pretty obvious this attempt was self administered.

    One might ask what is the best part about this situation. Well tomorrow is one of those not so often days that I have to do actual physical labor for work during a week day. Golly gee, yah don’t say! I’m hoping I feel better by Wednesday night because I know, even if I am in pain, I’ll still work.

    There is a 50/50 chance that, like the summer, I will have to take one day off a week to help cut back the winter payroll (i.e. save my boss money). And though I love sitting on my ass and watching television at home, money is nice too.

    Snark aside, on the pain scale, I’m probably a three. So really, this is just annoying. I’ve dealt with cramps worst than this while working. And I know if I go anywhere above say a five, I will go to the hospital. But, for right now, wrap is rest are what I’m putting my hope in.

  • Annoyance of the Hour

    Currently, most of the weight of holding my left arm up is being supported by my neck. Saturday night, as I parked the car after a long day of worked, a shooting pain in my elbow made me yelp. I had hoped this pain would pass while I slept, but intermittently yesterday, while sitting at a light board for about 9 hrs, my elbow lightly throbbed. And when I woke up to go to the gym this morning, it was worse.

    So I took a scarf and wrapped it around my wrist. Then I took a short piece of rope and used two slip knots to fashion a homemade sling. That’s right; I’m crafty!

    For the most part, it’s helped. Driving to work this morning was fun (I drive stick!) and typing at times was hairy, until I adjusted the rope to a better length. Overall, the pain from the pressure of the rope on my wrist has out weighted the throbbing in my elbow, but I think I’ll keep it this way for at least another day.

    The last time this happened, I was in college, it was the other arm, and I couldn’t manage to brush my hair. If you will recall, it can get quite long and, at the time, was longer than what I donated recently. I called my Dad, who told me to just rest my arm for a few days, which worked then. Here’s hoping it will work again, cause my doctor’s appointments aren’t until mid December (stacking all three in one day!).

    Photo of sling & offending elbow to be added once I get home tonight.