Diabetic Cyborg’s Life: Blood Glucose, Health Insurance, Mental Health and an Orange Nuisance
Sometimes Outside forces are hard to ignore an not care about.
As I discussed the last few weeks, I have an “artificial pancreas,” A.K.A. an insulin pump, and the daily progress of getting my blood glucose to a consistently good level that is not hyperglycemic or hypoglycemic. I had my carb ratio, the setting that determines the amount of insulin I get in my boluses for meals, at 13 again briefly. I had to turn it to 12 again after it that insulin I received was not enough to keep my glucose levels close to “in range” of 70 to 180 blood glucose (BG) and sensor glucose (SG). Turns out my love for all things 13 made me make set the ration to that when I had it at 11 and thought to myself, “hey I might be able to make the ratio 13 again, yay!” How silly was that, but now I have to address eternal issues that have my anxiety in overdrive.
My anxiety lately is mostly based in the orange terror that runs America as its president. That man and his party threaten everything that I rely on to live a life that does is not filled with pain and uncertainty. The added fact that I am a trained American Historian and can teach American Political Science at the underclass level only makes the current state of American Politics that much worse for me. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, “stop paying attention to it,” or “ignore it” if it bothers me so much. The only issue is that my health insurance and health care rely on the Affordable Care Act since I cannot get coverage through any other way than the Texas’s market place on healthcare.gov. I wish I could just turn-off the part of the outside world that is politics in America and get obsessed with movies or TV or sports, but my life depends on too many national connected health care services. Any sense of “normal” Washington politics would be a welcome thing now. I just hope the repugnant inhumanity of it all brings a star like JFK or MLK during the fight for Civil Rights. We need empathy for those people at risk and need help from our Federal Government.
I received a letter in the mail dated June 19th telling me that I reached the “max out of pocket” and I not longer had to pay copays, deductibles or coinsurance for the rest on the year as of January 17th. So, yes they took from that day to June 19th to inform me of that fact. However, they left out all the measures I had to do to make sure every medicine and all my pump’s supplies had to be prescribed by my Primary Care Physician. Otherwise, they are “out of network” and not covered by my insurance. That means that I have to pay for them like I had no insurance.
More and more now I feel like more of burden on my family’s resources and money. My parents are retired, and I am slowly draining money from them. There is no end in sight for my hopes of any kind of income. I have no income for myself, aside from the twenty some or so bucks I get from my blogging and the occasional donation to me from strangers and family. Yes, I know they willingly will always do it and show no hints of concern, but I still hate that I must be the burden I have become.
Money, of course, is not everything. I also feel for missing out doing little things around the house since I am home all day. I do manage to do some chores and house work, but I can only do little things for around 10 to 15 minutes at a time. It is especially hard since my parents are getting older, and I feel like I need to do more than just housework. I know this is all part of my coping with my physical illnesses and not really anything new. Though, with my consideration of my mental health I feel that my mental illnesses are only making any feelings of being a burden on my family that much worse.
I have the sense that my head only worsens my feelings worthlessness. That is why I value these posts and your positive feedback so much. The rush of endorphins I get when I respond to comments or see that the number of people that saw or read them is no doubt a major reason I post them. The help and inspiration that anyone might like my work is the icing on the cake that is my blog. I know that there are much bigger issues in the world and me droning on and on about my chronic and mental illnesses seems like a waste of energy.
I just know that I would not be here if it were not for other people sharing their health and life problems, and I was not doing the same with my blog. I thank every one of the people documenting their journeys of health and life issues. And, of course, thank you for caring enough to read, comment and interact with this blog and me. I know Medium has its issues of organization and community issues. Conversely, I am just here to write and connect with people. I am more and more of a shut-in that hates to leaves the house and only talks to anyone in messages and chat windows on various social mediums. Again Clay Rivers on twitter sent me a screen grab of his “Daily Digest” showing he had my blog at the top of his “New From Your Network” feed.
I am glad that at least people who are following me on Medium are seeing when I post an entry even though I lost my “Top Writer in Health” tag. I am sure if I keep posting that will magically appear as it did the first time I saw it. I really don’t care that it went away, but it was just cool to have that on my profile. The first week of July is my visit to a Rheumatologist to see if I have Rheumatoid arthritis. I will report what is found and say if any insight into my health from that meeting. I have more appointments next week with my therapist and neurologist. I will know even more about my mental and physical health after those meeting next week.
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