I have posted a couple of diaries about health care reform, and several more comments all revolving around the premise of health care reform. The reason for all of us being here, and all of us from day in to day out, speaking about the proposals, the one we like, we one we don't like, and the ones that are so outrageous to us, we start to yell and scream, to the point our voices are horse and our body is tired, we all have our own reasons.
This diary to tell you about mine. This will be lengthy, and deeply personal, but I think it best that we all show why we are here, and why we support the idea of reform. We are not calling for socialism, we are not calling for a destruction of the system, we are calling for the health of our loved ones, the few people in this world that love us back, want to spend time with us, and care for us. We call for them to be happy, healthy, and cared for.
Sorry for there being, no pictures, and little quotes, but there is not much I can use for this subject.
I am currently as I type this, watching Keith Olbermann's Hour Long Special Comment on Health, for at least the fourth time (Most likely the fifth or sixth, but I will say four to be safe), and I can see the tears being held back in his eyes, I can hear it in his voice, and I can honestly say that listening to the heart wrenching stories of his father, and his friend, makes the tears came to my eyes also, it makes my voice crack just a little bit, and makes goosebumps crawl up to the top of my skin.
My mother is the only person in the world, that from day one loved me. She was the only one there for me, when I couldn't be there for myself. She ran with no money, no clothes for her, only a few diapers for me, and some clothes of mine, from my real father, who in his rages he went through, had threatened to kill me, and her. She never flinched, never backed down, she just told him, I dare you to try. He ran off, pissed, and she jumped the next plane to Kentucky, where she had family, and where I would live my life.
For mother's sake the child was dear,
and dearer was the mother for the child.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet
I was 8 months old, and no matter that I can't remember it, I know it happened, and I can feel the love she has for me. I would never allow another person to harm her, and I know if I was older when my real father had tried that, well, there would be one less wife beater left on this planet. But I wasn't, and I will never be able to take back the pain, the anguish she felt under the fist of a man, much larger than she, but I won't lay down why she is going through new pain, new anguish.
My mother is a short woman, and larger in weight, she has a terrible back problem, caused from her time as a Certified Nursing Assistant, where she caused two bulging disks, and three slipped disks, along with several pinched nerves, from trying and lift up a patient. She is a strong woman, and one who thinks she can lift up the world if she could. She asked for help, no one answered, so instead of waiting, she decided she could do it herself, well ever sense that day, she would never be the same.
Because of her injuries, she never got to go back to work, she was denied Workman's Comp, because she didn't file a report right then and there (She is a stubborn soul, and waited til she was immobile to file the report), and the company she worked for Our Lady of Belefonte Hospital, somehow lost the claim she did file, and then fired her.
We sued, but she picked a lawyer, too worried about his up coming election to be a local judge, she only gained enough money to cover him. The lawyer was an idiot, and he had enough information that a small child could have won the case, but he was so incompetent and so worried about his election, that he didn't know half of the information, and the day of the court hearing, he was so lost, he looked pitiful.
So to this day, she has never got it fixed, and because of our economically problems, which started in 2004, she had to continue to work, up to last year, when she finally decided she could not do it anymore. But still the years of continuous work, when she should have been recovering, has led to her having constant pain in her backs and legs, and has led to her being less mobile, and more tired.
This tiredness, led to weight gain, which led to the curse of her family, diabetes. She has extreme diabetes, she can test her sugar, and it will be as low as 75, and then test it after a regular pop (soda for you non-southerns) it will jump up 270 or higher. She struggles with it, and can't afford any medicine that can actual help, only some that will just give some momentary relief, but have such higher side-effects, it pointless to even take it.
As you can suspect, we do not health insurance. My step-father works as a contractor, and he can keep a job long enough to be taken in as a full employee, and so they go uninsured. Me personally, have insurance from my real father, and am lucky, because of the years of football I participated in, and years of heavy lifting, have left my knees more or less useless, but I get to go to the doctor at a much lesser fee than my mother ever could.
Given her hard life, and the huge complex issues, that without care, will leave her paralyzed, and mostly dead, before she can say she has lived a full life, she deserves the right to health care. And when I heard, some unknown Senator from Illinois, saying he will allow people to buy into a public insurance plan, that will be cheaper than insurance out right now, and will not take, pre-existent conditions as a red flag, and will not deny anyone. I jumped for joy, and it about brought tears to my eyes as I looked at my mother, and knew, she will finally be insured.
Look in those eyes... Listen to that dear voice... Notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand ! Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all gifts. Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the anxiety of that tone and look, however slight is your pain. In after life you may have friends, fonds, dears, but never you will have again the inexpressible love & gentleness levished upon you which none but a mother bestows.
- Macaulay
I never told her, I never told anyone, because I wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted to walk into the house, after we get the public option, and hand her the papers to fill out, and say Momma, you will have a chance to live, you will have a chance to have what I get to have, but even better. I wanted to be the person to give her the chance, and that is why I voted, that is why I was so supportive of Barack Obama, besides the fact I am a Liberal, I wanted this man to give my mom a chance. I wanted this man to give everyone's mom a chance.
This is why I am so vocal about this, so strong for the Public Option, and why I don't want a trigger, or an opt-out, I don't want it watered down, I want a Public Option. It is not for me, it is not to help the democrats, it is not to expand govt., it is to help people like my mother, and the 45+ million people across this country just like her, who have a lesser chance of surviving this hard world, than people like me are.
This is not new news, this is not something you all have not heard before, but it something that is close to my heart, and as I write this, I can feel the same tears at the edge of my eyes, that you can see Keith Olbermann had while doing his special comment, I feel like the tears would be justified, but only if we get what we need. It is not a want, or something we would like to happen, it is a need. We need water, we need food, we need shelter, and we need our health, so by proxy we need the Public Option.
I just hope that you all can read this, and not gain anymore support for the Public Option, because I know that would be impossible, but read this and gain some insight into why I am here, and why at midnight I am in front of a laptop screen, typing frantically, and looking so intensively that my eyes begin to blur. I am here in the hopes of pushing support, in the hopes of letting some people hear my story, and in the hopes that someone who on the fence about health care reform, will read this and think that maybe, just maybe, it is needed. I would also like to hear some of your stories, because it is great to know that we are not alone in this world, to know that we are not the only ones going through this. It helps makes it easier, not in an practical sense, but a small mental sense.
This is not about me, this is not about my political philosophy, this is about the only person I can honestly say, has loved me since the day I can born. I love my mother, love her more than any person or thing in this planet, and I will be DAMNED if she is left in this world with nothing. Left to die, because she didn't have the money some others' have. I will DAMNED if we don't the public option. If we don't, I'm moving her to Canada, because at least I know she will be taken care of there.