Since when did the medical community agree to pay off the national debt? This is the conclusion I've come to. There can be no other reason why the majority of some people's income must be used to pay exorbitant medical bills.
I thought last year would take the cake for my out-of-pocket medical expenses, and that things would go down considerably after that. After all, I did have a fairly major surgery. In case you don't trust my point of view, I paid over $7000 in expenses last year---almost 25% of my take-home pay. In the last month, I've had another little run-in with the medical community. So far, I've been asked to pony up $1800 ABOVE what my insurance will pay. After an outpatient procedure at the hospital this week, I'm sure there's a lot more to come.
Is this an exaggeration? No way. It's been this way for a long time. I remember my grandmother's $4000 Life-flight ride from Pryor to Tulsa...and that was 15 years ago. Just a couple of days for her in the hospital, and a couple of stents, totaled up another $50,000. I remember one of the last times I went to the emergency room for a migraine and drug interaction, about the same number of years ago. I got a bill for $600---for two shots! I would love to know what was so incredibly valuable about that stuff; was it weapons-grade plutonium? Am I now worth $600 more than before the shots?
Of course not. That's the real irony of modern medicine: except in rare cases, they aren't adding new hardware or improving on the original model. It's just maintenance. For that kind of money, though, we should be better, faster, stronger----bionic. Or at least we should be better-looking. Oh, yes, they can certainly do that, but there's no guarantee on that kind of body work. Poor Kenny Rogers had a face lift and came out looking like a playground pervert. And Burt Reynolds? It gives me the shivers to see pictures of him now; he's just no longer The Bandit. He looks like he's been in a strong Oklahoma wind for way too long---very painful to look at. Oh, and all the silicone implants in this country must have done wonders for the chiropractic industry; otherwise, how do people like JWoww and Pamela Anderson keep their back ends in alignment with their front ends?
The stories go on and on. One family I know paid off each child's birth about the time the next one was born, and they are at least three years apart. Another friend was hospitalized for two weeks and had no insurance. They saved her life, apparently so that she could literally spend the REST of it paying off the bills. Insurance companies don't seem to care that hospitals hike up prices for those that have insurance; I've been told that myself and seen it in action. The premiums themselves are beyond understanding. But who dares to go without insurance?
I'm beginning to smell a conspiracy here, and it stinks. It seems the only way to deal with it for now is to pay the bills, laugh, and quietly wait for the day when some doctor desperately needs me to proof the text of some journal article he wants to publish. I think $2000 per column inch is perfectly reasonable, don't you?
PS---I have a WORLD of wonderful doctors who have saved my life several times over in different ways. Plus, I know countless good and kind people working in the medical professions. This is certainly no reflection on their work; I am most grateful for them. It's only a tiny little rant about the money aspect of the whole game. Like religion, medicine is a difficult field to reconcile financially.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Truth and Consequences
Imagine that you were told that your duties were to be changed at your job. For whatever reason, you would be losing a part of the position you enjoy. You would probably be unhappy. You might be angry. Perhaps you'd even know the reason why you were released.
Now imagine a whole town demanding to know why this happened. What would you say; how could you react? Would you tell the truth, from your heart of hearts? And if the media stepped in and stirred this up big-time---whoa! Things could get out of hand.
Finally, imagine your employers giving in and telling everyone why you were released. How many nanoseconds would it take you to file a lawsuit for the bazillion employment and privacy laws they had just broken?
If you follow small-town politics, you know that occasionally, everyone in a community has to lose their minds over athletics. It happened (not for the first time) this week at my school system. Four coaches were released from their coaching duties; they weren't fired, just had their duties changed.
I don't know anything more than anyone else does---that is to say, rumor and speculation is all I am privy to, just like everyone else. As with many things related to school, I found out about this from my kids. I don't have a dog in this fight, and I barely know the people involved. It's none of my business why this happened.
And then there's this: It's not anyone else's business, either. Certainly, no one can demand to know the circumstances of someone else's employment and seriously expect an answer.
If I found myself in this situation, I think that I would know why this might have happened. I tend to self-reflect a little too much and worry about making the right decisions for my students, and I believe that is a place that all good teachers operate from. And I would surely be horrified if the whole town, even in my defense, were to demand to know why I was reassigned. After all, it happens frequently in education.
That's what gets me about the current hubbub: schools are about education, not sports.
Where is the righteous indignation for the state of education in Oklahoma?
Where were these people when we rallied at the capitol three weeks ago, to demand action and budgets that properly reflect the needs of our students? We are dead last in the region, and next to last in the nation, in our financial commitment to our students. Why isn't that what's stirring people up so much that they write fantastically hateful, ridiculous comments on news station stories and post them on the internet for all the world to see?
Why do people lose it over games, which only a few students will get to participate in for a handful of years, but don't see how the treatment of all teachers and whole school systems affects lives for a lifetime?
I haven't had time to fully assimilate it in my head, but this whole thing keeps me thinking of a poem by one of those pessimistic Naturalists, who believed that the most difficult thing to deal with was probably what would happen. Stephen Crane, who wrote The Red Badge of Courage, also wrote many more poems like this one:
Now imagine a whole town demanding to know why this happened. What would you say; how could you react? Would you tell the truth, from your heart of hearts? And if the media stepped in and stirred this up big-time---whoa! Things could get out of hand.
Finally, imagine your employers giving in and telling everyone why you were released. How many nanoseconds would it take you to file a lawsuit for the bazillion employment and privacy laws they had just broken?
If you follow small-town politics, you know that occasionally, everyone in a community has to lose their minds over athletics. It happened (not for the first time) this week at my school system. Four coaches were released from their coaching duties; they weren't fired, just had their duties changed.
I don't know anything more than anyone else does---that is to say, rumor and speculation is all I am privy to, just like everyone else. As with many things related to school, I found out about this from my kids. I don't have a dog in this fight, and I barely know the people involved. It's none of my business why this happened.
And then there's this: It's not anyone else's business, either. Certainly, no one can demand to know the circumstances of someone else's employment and seriously expect an answer.
If I found myself in this situation, I think that I would know why this might have happened. I tend to self-reflect a little too much and worry about making the right decisions for my students, and I believe that is a place that all good teachers operate from. And I would surely be horrified if the whole town, even in my defense, were to demand to know why I was reassigned. After all, it happens frequently in education.
That's what gets me about the current hubbub: schools are about education, not sports.
Where is the righteous indignation for the state of education in Oklahoma?
Where were these people when we rallied at the capitol three weeks ago, to demand action and budgets that properly reflect the needs of our students? We are dead last in the region, and next to last in the nation, in our financial commitment to our students. Why isn't that what's stirring people up so much that they write fantastically hateful, ridiculous comments on news station stories and post them on the internet for all the world to see?
Why do people lose it over games, which only a few students will get to participate in for a handful of years, but don't see how the treatment of all teachers and whole school systems affects lives for a lifetime?
I haven't had time to fully assimilate it in my head, but this whole thing keeps me thinking of a poem by one of those pessimistic Naturalists, who believed that the most difficult thing to deal with was probably what would happen. Stephen Crane, who wrote The Red Badge of Courage, also wrote many more poems like this one:
The Wayfarer
The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."
Stephen Crane
The message is simple; the truth is painful. Those closest to it are hurt the most. It's easy to look at anything---a path full of painful weeds, someone else's decision---from a distance and raise hell, cry foul, and demand our own way. It's another thing to be close to the truth and cut by its razor edges.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Cat-astrophe
I'm gonna get a few ugly messages about this one.
I might deserve them---I'm not at all sure what might come out as I write this.
The longest-lived creature on this good earth has got to be the domestic house cat....or perhaps it just seems that way. As a farm girl who had a small herd of outdoor pets as a child, only one of whom lived for more than a few years, I certainly never imagined just how many years an indoor cat could lie around furring up everything, nor how dang demanding your average feline could be. And I sure never thought about the fact that keeping a cat stocked in litter, cat pan liners, treats, medicine, and Iams cat food (because the cheap stuff makes them sick) would cost roughly the equivalent of an Ivy League education after the years start to stack up.
See, I find myself with a little issue here: I have two cats that by age (14 years) should be on the very last of their nine lives, but who show only one or two very, very bad signs of aging. Otherwise, they are fairly lively and limber for being, pardon the expression, so long in the tooth. I am beginning to wonder whether I should arrange nursing care for them for after I'm gone.
In case you aren't aware, I do believe the pet-to-people ratio should always be at the least equal, but preferably in favor of the people. It just gets into weird territory if the people have more pets than family members. It gets even weirder if you're a single female high school English teacher; the simple fact that I have two cats has made me the Crazy Cat Lady to 10 years of students. (No, men don't seem to get this same association; one of my co-teacher friends is a single man who has had a truly staggering number of dogs at times, but no one calls him the Crazy Dog Man. Why is that?) I'm not the crazy cat lady; for that matter, I'm none of those things except a little crazy at times.
No, in seriousness, I have two cats because those 14 years ago, my bestie Laura and I were sharing a house, and we both thought having a pet would be good. She was a dog person, but I didn't like the idea of an indoor-outdoor animal in Tick-Heaven Tahlequah, so we thought about a cat, but hadn't come to any decision. And then one weekend in Arrowhead Mall in Muskogee, just wandering down to Sears at the east end, we noticed some kittens in the window of the pet store. They were the tiniest kittens imaginable. She thought the black one was adorable. I fell in love with the gray one. They were sibling tuxedo cats, and they seemed to go together like a matched set. That's how I came to have two cats. Laura loved her little black and white Figaro, like the Disney cat, and I knew who my cat was from the first: Fitz, after F. Scott Fitzgerald, in a very dashing gray tuxedo. They were so tiny that they would crawl into both sides of a Kleenex box, the kind with the rounded opening on the top and the front, and go to sleep.
Those cats saw a lot of life in that house. Fitz learned how to open the screened door to the deck and run out into the yard, so I had to put in a hook-and-eye closure to keep him from busting out when we weren't looking. They ate about $600 worth of silk flower arrangements and killed every plant in the house. They completely took down our Christmas tree the first year we had them; after that, we had to tie the tree to the wall and use things that couldn't break to decorate with. Although those things pissed us off, we laughed endlessly at their usual cat antics: chasing after nothing, leaping wildly after toys, climbing door frames, chirping at the bug or birds through the screen door, and the hysterical way they would come skidding into the kitchen if we asked "Kitties want treats?" Less cute was the way they learned to steal money and hair accessories and jewelry, though most of it ended up in the middle of Laura's bed, like they were offering penance to the "nice" human in the house. They protected her right up to the end: when the funeral home came to get her after she passed away, we had to take them right off her hospital bed that we'd installed in the living room. And she returned the favor, asking nothing of me before she died except to never separate the cats.
I never have. We have been without her for almost 11 years now. I've tried to figure out what to do a few times, because I'm not enough for two cats who were used to having two available laps to sit in, and now they have not even one lap, one human who pays enough attention to them. I'm gone from home at least 13 hours most days during the week; when I AM home, I am either working or sleeping most of the time. I know they need more from their people---or rather, their person.
That may be why Fig and Fitz have been developing new problems. They are not easy problems to solve, either---issues at both ends of the cat, so to speak. So far, it's cost me several hundred dollars, with no real answers.
So how does one know when it's time to say goodbye to an old, furry friend? Is it reasonable to let them continue struggling, knowing they've been by my side for a truly shocking number of years? Is it inhumane to say "enough is enough" and let them rest? I only know that as long as they are here, they will be a living, breathing link to the happiest and best part of my past. Even as they continue to hide my barrettes and barf on my newest magazine, I love them for their lazy green eyes and funny antics---and for the rough equivalent of a European vacation that I've invested in them. They have been well worth it.
I might deserve them---I'm not at all sure what might come out as I write this.
The longest-lived creature on this good earth has got to be the domestic house cat....or perhaps it just seems that way. As a farm girl who had a small herd of outdoor pets as a child, only one of whom lived for more than a few years, I certainly never imagined just how many years an indoor cat could lie around furring up everything, nor how dang demanding your average feline could be. And I sure never thought about the fact that keeping a cat stocked in litter, cat pan liners, treats, medicine, and Iams cat food (because the cheap stuff makes them sick) would cost roughly the equivalent of an Ivy League education after the years start to stack up.
See, I find myself with a little issue here: I have two cats that by age (14 years) should be on the very last of their nine lives, but who show only one or two very, very bad signs of aging. Otherwise, they are fairly lively and limber for being, pardon the expression, so long in the tooth. I am beginning to wonder whether I should arrange nursing care for them for after I'm gone.
In case you aren't aware, I do believe the pet-to-people ratio should always be at the least equal, but preferably in favor of the people. It just gets into weird territory if the people have more pets than family members. It gets even weirder if you're a single female high school English teacher; the simple fact that I have two cats has made me the Crazy Cat Lady to 10 years of students. (No, men don't seem to get this same association; one of my co-teacher friends is a single man who has had a truly staggering number of dogs at times, but no one calls him the Crazy Dog Man. Why is that?) I'm not the crazy cat lady; for that matter, I'm none of those things except a little crazy at times.
No, in seriousness, I have two cats because those 14 years ago, my bestie Laura and I were sharing a house, and we both thought having a pet would be good. She was a dog person, but I didn't like the idea of an indoor-outdoor animal in Tick-Heaven Tahlequah, so we thought about a cat, but hadn't come to any decision. And then one weekend in Arrowhead Mall in Muskogee, just wandering down to Sears at the east end, we noticed some kittens in the window of the pet store. They were the tiniest kittens imaginable. She thought the black one was adorable. I fell in love with the gray one. They were sibling tuxedo cats, and they seemed to go together like a matched set. That's how I came to have two cats. Laura loved her little black and white Figaro, like the Disney cat, and I knew who my cat was from the first: Fitz, after F. Scott Fitzgerald, in a very dashing gray tuxedo. They were so tiny that they would crawl into both sides of a Kleenex box, the kind with the rounded opening on the top and the front, and go to sleep.
Those cats saw a lot of life in that house. Fitz learned how to open the screened door to the deck and run out into the yard, so I had to put in a hook-and-eye closure to keep him from busting out when we weren't looking. They ate about $600 worth of silk flower arrangements and killed every plant in the house. They completely took down our Christmas tree the first year we had them; after that, we had to tie the tree to the wall and use things that couldn't break to decorate with. Although those things pissed us off, we laughed endlessly at their usual cat antics: chasing after nothing, leaping wildly after toys, climbing door frames, chirping at the bug or birds through the screen door, and the hysterical way they would come skidding into the kitchen if we asked "Kitties want treats?" Less cute was the way they learned to steal money and hair accessories and jewelry, though most of it ended up in the middle of Laura's bed, like they were offering penance to the "nice" human in the house. They protected her right up to the end: when the funeral home came to get her after she passed away, we had to take them right off her hospital bed that we'd installed in the living room. And she returned the favor, asking nothing of me before she died except to never separate the cats.
I never have. We have been without her for almost 11 years now. I've tried to figure out what to do a few times, because I'm not enough for two cats who were used to having two available laps to sit in, and now they have not even one lap, one human who pays enough attention to them. I'm gone from home at least 13 hours most days during the week; when I AM home, I am either working or sleeping most of the time. I know they need more from their people---or rather, their person.
That may be why Fig and Fitz have been developing new problems. They are not easy problems to solve, either---issues at both ends of the cat, so to speak. So far, it's cost me several hundred dollars, with no real answers.
So how does one know when it's time to say goodbye to an old, furry friend? Is it reasonable to let them continue struggling, knowing they've been by my side for a truly shocking number of years? Is it inhumane to say "enough is enough" and let them rest? I only know that as long as they are here, they will be a living, breathing link to the happiest and best part of my past. Even as they continue to hide my barrettes and barf on my newest magazine, I love them for their lazy green eyes and funny antics---and for the rough equivalent of a European vacation that I've invested in them. They have been well worth it.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Blessed
I've owed this blog for.....well, perhaps for my entire lifetime.
Over my 50 years, I've spent countless hours---whole years of them---feeling down, particularly feeling down about life and how it has treated me. I often thought to myself how unfair it was that I didn't ever get what I wanted, which tended to focus on either being beautiful, being loved, or being Patsy Cline, and sometimes all of those at the same time! (I never claimed my dreams were small.) Most of the time, I would put on a good face and go with it. Inside, however, I was resentful, angry, or just plain sad, seeing myself as one of those people who would just never have the good life that seemed to come so easy to others.
And then there are times when I realize I just need a good, swift kick in the ass, and I'm just the person to deliver it.
I have had SO MUCH to rejoice over in this life that I am ashamed I even had to admit to that paragraph of self-pity you just read. No, I'm not beautiful or widely loved or anything like Patsy Cline, even though I can do a pretty fair job of singing her ballads. No, I'm not a rich lady of leisure who's able to use her wealth to help the less fortunate. No, I'm not above petty feelings like envy and anger and fear. But I'll tell you what I am, and what I do have, and how I can feel.
I'm an average middle-aged, Heinz 57 American woman, part Cherokee, part French, part German, and a whole bunch of other things. I'm a daughter, sister, aunt, niece, and cousin. I've been working for pay since I was 13. I'm a teacher, one of the lucky few who love what they do and were born to do it. I was so fortunate to find that profession when I was young, so I'll be able to retire while I'm relatively young, which is how it should really be, if it's to be the best for the kids. It's a young person's game. I am a church member and a thinking Christian liberal. I know and respect people of all kinds of religious persuasions, and I like to learn from them whenever possible. I'm a reformed smoker and a non-gambler, but I'm not a goody-goody anymore. I'm a relatively balanced person with some good, some bad, and some just-bad-enough-to-be-interesting.
I have a family, a loud, busy family full of strange and wonderful characters, and we all, miraculously, have enjoyed relatively good health and happiness. I have two parents with strong personalities: Mom is sweet but tough as nails, Dad is tough but full of boyish pranks. I have a baby brother and a baby sister, both of them burning with intensity, though you might never know it. I have seven---SEVEN!---magical nephews and nieces whom I've held, hugged, rocked, kissed, played with, read to, and teased mercilessly. I have a separate family of my own "children," a handful of special former students that will always hold a most precious place in my heart. I have the most amazing man in my life who loves me fearlessly and without question, as I do him; and it only took us 50 years to find each other.
I will probably always struggle with envy, fear, and anger. But I feel the elation of experiencing the first warm breezes in the spring. I feel the joy of holding a newborn's cheek next to my own and knowing that there is nothing else on earth like being next to that newly-made child of God. I remember the happy tears that I, the stone-faced cynic, cried as my sister married her husband. I remember, too, our laughter and encouragement we gave that baby sister the day she took her first steps so many years ago. I know the anguish of loss from death---my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my childhood friend, my best friend---and from heartbreak. But I have known laughter, oh, my: the laughter of inside jokes and wisecracks and wild storytelling. I know the bubbly silliness of a two-year-old, the one-too-many-glasses wine giggles, the bawdy joke guffaw. I feel the energy of the whole world coursing through my veins when I can get a teenager to ask just one good question about something we've read.
I have hurt for nothing in this life that I have needed, and I know it. I don't always remember it, but I know it.
What am I? What do I have? How do I feel?
Blessed. Blessings. Blessed.
Over my 50 years, I've spent countless hours---whole years of them---feeling down, particularly feeling down about life and how it has treated me. I often thought to myself how unfair it was that I didn't ever get what I wanted, which tended to focus on either being beautiful, being loved, or being Patsy Cline, and sometimes all of those at the same time! (I never claimed my dreams were small.) Most of the time, I would put on a good face and go with it. Inside, however, I was resentful, angry, or just plain sad, seeing myself as one of those people who would just never have the good life that seemed to come so easy to others.
And then there are times when I realize I just need a good, swift kick in the ass, and I'm just the person to deliver it.
I have had SO MUCH to rejoice over in this life that I am ashamed I even had to admit to that paragraph of self-pity you just read. No, I'm not beautiful or widely loved or anything like Patsy Cline, even though I can do a pretty fair job of singing her ballads. No, I'm not a rich lady of leisure who's able to use her wealth to help the less fortunate. No, I'm not above petty feelings like envy and anger and fear. But I'll tell you what I am, and what I do have, and how I can feel.
I'm an average middle-aged, Heinz 57 American woman, part Cherokee, part French, part German, and a whole bunch of other things. I'm a daughter, sister, aunt, niece, and cousin. I've been working for pay since I was 13. I'm a teacher, one of the lucky few who love what they do and were born to do it. I was so fortunate to find that profession when I was young, so I'll be able to retire while I'm relatively young, which is how it should really be, if it's to be the best for the kids. It's a young person's game. I am a church member and a thinking Christian liberal. I know and respect people of all kinds of religious persuasions, and I like to learn from them whenever possible. I'm a reformed smoker and a non-gambler, but I'm not a goody-goody anymore. I'm a relatively balanced person with some good, some bad, and some just-bad-enough-to-be-interesting.
I have a family, a loud, busy family full of strange and wonderful characters, and we all, miraculously, have enjoyed relatively good health and happiness. I have two parents with strong personalities: Mom is sweet but tough as nails, Dad is tough but full of boyish pranks. I have a baby brother and a baby sister, both of them burning with intensity, though you might never know it. I have seven---SEVEN!---magical nephews and nieces whom I've held, hugged, rocked, kissed, played with, read to, and teased mercilessly. I have a separate family of my own "children," a handful of special former students that will always hold a most precious place in my heart. I have the most amazing man in my life who loves me fearlessly and without question, as I do him; and it only took us 50 years to find each other.
I will probably always struggle with envy, fear, and anger. But I feel the elation of experiencing the first warm breezes in the spring. I feel the joy of holding a newborn's cheek next to my own and knowing that there is nothing else on earth like being next to that newly-made child of God. I remember the happy tears that I, the stone-faced cynic, cried as my sister married her husband. I remember, too, our laughter and encouragement we gave that baby sister the day she took her first steps so many years ago. I know the anguish of loss from death---my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my childhood friend, my best friend---and from heartbreak. But I have known laughter, oh, my: the laughter of inside jokes and wisecracks and wild storytelling. I know the bubbly silliness of a two-year-old, the one-too-many-glasses wine giggles, the bawdy joke guffaw. I feel the energy of the whole world coursing through my veins when I can get a teenager to ask just one good question about something we've read.
I have hurt for nothing in this life that I have needed, and I know it. I don't always remember it, but I know it.
What am I? What do I have? How do I feel?
Blessed. Blessings. Blessed.
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