BEAR ALERTS
© Leslie Blanchard
My life partner calls me "Bear", a nickname she came up with 15 years ago. Her mom, my mother-outlaw also calls me Bear. Oh, BTW I refer to my partner's mother as mother-outlaw, because people won't allow my partner and I to get legally married. The day that happens- I'll call her my mother-in-law. Anyway that has nothing to do with this post, except to let y'all know I'm called Bear.
For a few weeks now I've been wanting to do a semi-regular post just a quick view on something that has caught my attention, or a shout out about something important. I didn't want these little postings to be like my usual ones, I don't intend to research, or link sources, etc. Just a space to get something off my chest. Sort of like on Family Guy when Peter got a segment on the news called "What really grinds my gears". I couldn't think of a "catchy" little term to call these posts until last night. So I'm going to call them Bear Alerts -and they will come in 3 flavors.
A Bear grumble- these will be just little insights into a trending topic i.e. how I feel about Tiger Woods.
Then we'll have a Bear Growl- something has upset me, or something is important for you to know and mainstream media isn't covering it, etc.
Then there will be the occasional Bear Roar. When you see that you may want to be sure your kids aren't around cause the fur gonna be flying and I'll be putting a lot of coins into the swear jar.
I've wanted to write on the whole heath care subject-from a personal viewpoint. But I was worried it would look like a "poor me, pity me, my life is so hard" type of article. Most of my readers and friends from Twitter, Facebook, Friend Feed, Blog Catalog and elsewhere know that I don't look at my life that way. I don't dwell on my health and rarely mention it. And most of you know I have 3 pretty serious medical issues. Those being:
1. Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis
2. Extremely advanced C.O.P.D.
3. Rheumatoid Arthritis
So here comes the Bear Growl for Thursday Dec. 10th.
When did it become so much damn trouble to take a pill daily? There are all these commercials that imply people are too stupid to take a daily medication and should switch medications to weekly, even monthly ones. Even more worrisome and preposterous is the fact that folks are doing it!
I'm sorry, but if your biggest problem in life is having to take a pill every day then you're among the luckiest S.O.B.'s on the planet. And you're putting out to much carbon dioxide when you whine about it. I mean come on! I take a minimum of 23 pills a day, that's right, a minimum. I also use inhalers several times a day, and have to take my pulse ox every few hours, my blood pressure a few times a day and I used to give myself an injection every day. All of these medications do nothing but treat the SYMPTOMS of my illness's. There are no cures. There are no medicines for that- and that's OK, it's just my life and I don't give it a hell of a lot of thought.
When I was first diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis we tried one of the few medications that hopefully would stop it from getting worse (the daily injection). But I was already secondary progressive when diagnosed and the shots did nothing, so I quit them. I'm now in the Primary Progressive Course of the illness and all we can do is try and control symptoms. Of the 23 pills not one of them is for pain- they are to lessen the symptoms; spasticity, fatigue, depression, tremors, esophageal spasms, memory loss, speech problems, cognitive problems, falling down, drop foot, massive muscle cramps, peeing thru a tube, trouble swallowing and much more. It takes me several tries to swallow all the damn pills because I have difficulty swallowing due to M.S. but I don't bitch about it. Hell if I only had to take ONE pill a day it'd be cooler than Christmas!
I do have pain pills, mild ones, by choice. I don't take them on a daily basis even though I am in pain every second of the day. Pot would help- but we know that's not legal either. Government is against love and herbal medications. I take Valium and Darvocet only occasional when I can't handle the pain. So if you are going to sit there and tell me that taking 1 pill a day is too inconvenient, if that is your biggest problem in life... shut the F up!!
I am so sick of every other ad on T.V. being from a pharmaceutical company. I think they should be outlawed. They invent a drug-then think of some new "disease" to market it. 15 years ago we never heard of "general anxiety disorder" or "restless leg syndrome". Hell I have restless leg syndrome because there are times when I can't make my legs stop shaking. My arms and hands are like that too- maybe next year we'll have medicine for restless arm syndrome!
DISCLAIMER: I know people have anxiety disorders, panic attacks and are valid consumers for these drugs. I do not mean to offend anyone that truly needs those medications. But we all know there are many more people taking them than need them. Prescription drug abuse is at an all time high.
The worst part of these commercials is that it takes them 3 times as long to list the "possible side effects" than it does to tell you what the medicine is for. Why can't they get it right- make a medicine that will fix a problem without creating other problems? Hell no- there's no profit margin in that! Then they tell you that you need to go to your Doctor and tell them you want that medicine, and it seems now days a lot of Docs do just give the patient what they ask for.
How about finding a cure for Cancer, for Multiple Sclerosis, for ALS, for Crohn's disease which killed my father-outlaw, or for diabetes which ravaged my Saint of a sister in law for 70 years? How about you stop thinking about the bottom line, and remember back to when you first decided to be a Chemist or a Doctor, or whatever you are, and inspect the reason you picked your career. If you did it for money all along-then get the hell out of the way of people who picked their careers to help people.
These T.V. commercials, and magazine advertisements are ridiculous. I conducted a little experiment last weekend. I watched 4 hours of television and counted the drug ads- 14! There oughta be a law against that crap. Every one of them were ordering you to march into your Doctor's office and tell them that you want to take this pill. Now I'm a very lucky person- I have a wonderful team of Doctors that listen to me. They understand that I know M.S., R.A., and C.O.P.D. on a level they never will (hopefully). If I am taking a medicine that isn't working we sit down together and decide what to do. We always ALWAYS try to not add any more medication. I am my own best health advocate-and YOU are your best health-care advocate. Don't be afraid to question the doctor, especially when it comes to medications. If they want to take you off a daily treatment and put you on a once a month treatment- think about that! What did they have to do to engineer the new drug? How did they shrink 30 days of medicine into 1 dose? Do you really want that in your system?
Don't even get me started on medical insurance. Let's just say I lost mine the day I was diagnosed with M.S., they said it was a pre-existing condition. When I decide to write about that it will be a Bear ROAR.
Basically what I wanted to say is, if you can't manage swallowing one pill a day, if you can't remember you have to do that- then I don't want to drive in traffic next to you. I don't want you to be the checkout clerk at my grocery store, or a teller at my bank. If swallowing one little pill is too much for you and you can't "deal" with it- GET A LIFE!
Learn what real problems are. Go to my Twitter page @1txsage1957, then visit my lists page http://twitter.com/1txsage1957/lists there are 4 lists of Good Causes-with more added daily, charities, NPO's, individual people, and all they do is try to help other people. Check it out! Maybe you will see how lucky you are that the biggest problem you face is swallowing one pill a day.
And that's it for the 1st Bear Growl, there will be another one when something ticks me off, or jazzes me up, excites me. Thanks for reading everybody!
Peace
I am so sorry that you are going through all of this. The anger must be hard to contain. I couldn't. Losing your medical insurance due to a "pre-exisitng condition" is beyond the pale. I would be calling the White House. And regarding those who will not recognize your marriage, well those are probably the same folks who are out and about cheating on their spouse after taking sacred vows. At this moment I think I have enough anger for both of us. Please take care....
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Thank you so much for your comments. I do need to clear one thing up- I'm not angry about my health. It is what it is. I get by pretty darn well, and as tired and clichéd as it may sound - I truly am a better person than I was before all of this. I could be much worse- I could be living somewhere bombs are a daily part of existence, I could be a starving little child, I could be a victim of human trafficking.
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I must say that I really do appreciate this post, as well as, a variety of your other posts. You illustrate a very important point here though...impatience and work.
People are so impatient nowadays. They cannot wait, it is always "I need this now!" "Why is this taking so long?" etc. The other is this misconception that small tedious tasks are somehow work.
As you illustrated, there are a vast majority of people who feel that taking a pill everyday is to much work. As we move closer and closer to this once a week, once a month, pill schedule, it makes me wonder if they also need someone to hold their mouth open for them. Perhaps taking a pill everyday is the cause of their "General Anxiety Disorder" thus highlighting another point. We seem to have become a nation of hypochondriacs. Though that is another matter entirely.
Wonderful post.
René Monroe
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Thank you René. It is true that impatience is a plague on society. But most people have been trained to be that way. Propaganda broadcast to us 24/7. Vaccines, artificial sweeteners, fluoride, all chemicals designed to dumb us down. Perhaps my dis-eases have helped protect me from being dumbed down- if so I am forever glad.
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I'm the same way with my disability, as well as the "bad" stuff that has happened to me. If I weren't deaf, on social security disability, abused by my ex spouse, and subsequently abused by "the system", I'm afraid to think about how ignorant I might be today. All these things are part of my path and I will use them to my advantage as life lessons, as well as try to share what I've learned with the rest of my species.
"Why me?" is always best answered with "why NOT me?".
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Always knew we were 2 of a kind Damien . My abuse came in childhood-but shaped who I am and who I am becoming. Thanks so much for visiting my blog, mate.
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It ain't no thang! You keep on doing your funky thang, sista.
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