Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Grasping At Straws

I am sorry for the lengthy intervals between postings here at the female survivalist. Presently I am going through one of the hardest battles of my life. The many doctors can't seem to find out what is wrong, why my body seems to have deserted me.

I have learned so much going through this painful process, among them that a person without health insurance will lose everything they have worked for, saved and scrimped their entire lives just to make it to retirement.

Medicaid or medicare, (I get them mixed up),  for adults requires total poverty. Anyone my age, having worked hard all their lives and has lived a minimalist lifestyle, is usually not poor enough to qualify. Then, insurance premiums are sky high, especially for those of us who work in the Food and Beverage industry.

Why am I writing this post now? Just a heads up to all of you without any health insurance in place. My oldest daughter has proven to be my angel, my other children as well, offering all kinds of assistance if I simply call.

Its so strange to be in this kind of situation having been healthy as a horse all my life, installing wood stoves myself, panning for gold, doing crazy bushwhacks, hiking thousands of miles alone, living out of a back pack, enjoying adventures of the wilderness kind. When I get well, I will be working in Yellowstone.

Stuff happens. No one is immune. My arsenal of pain killers, all lined up neatly, sits on the desk in my rented motel room, with a dosing chart. We learn to live one day at a time. That's a great lesson too.

OK, so the good news. We never give up hope. The body wants to be well. It wants so bad to get back to work, to play and to be of service to others. I am living in Livingston, Montana under the care of some skilled physicians. They say they will solve this, and I will be well again.

If you could send good thoughts my way, pray, whatever strings you can pull or contact God, please do so. Some have suggested I offended God in some way and hence I suffer so He can get my attention. I'm listening. I repent here and now for any offense. I don't know or understand the Powers that Be. I don't think we poor little mortals can understand the being that created universes so magnificent, yet designed the tiny amoeba.

At this point I am willing to do anything.

2 comments:

  1. This is an old post for you now, and I don't know if your health has improved in the last few months - but I just found your blog today and felt strongly that I wanted to reply to this post. 

    I want to say that you shouldn't blame yourself for your illness ... And certainly don't let yourself believe that you're being in some way punished by God. I believe that a loving God just wouldn't do that - and that people only believe he would to try to attribute some meaning and reason for ill health because they are afraid of it. 

    Illness is part of living. Part of the human condition - well, the condition of all life on earth, really!! It totally sucks, and has the ability / potential to destroy lives, and of course to actually take life - but it's normal for it to happen. You didn't do anything to cause it. 

    I speak from experience - I have been ill for 16 years now, and bedbound for the majority of the last 8 years. I've heard it all from people trying to avoid the reality of it, from blaming me, to the extreme of denying I am sick at all. It used to be really hard not to let those sorts of reactions affect me, and I took on a lot of self blame for years, which did me a lot of harm. In fact, it actually made me much more severely sick because i pushed myself too hard for so long trying to prove to people that i wasn't somehow bringing this illness on myself!! I'm finally getting towards a place of acceptance, though that's taken a very long time - so my advice is to do anything you can not to get pulled into that cycle. 

    Anyway, I'll stop rambling on now! ;) ... But this is a hi, from a girl who wishes she could get back out into the countryside and live again! Take care of yourself! :)

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  2. Thanks Susanna, I am in excellent health now, I appreciate the reply. Sorry to hear you are not as well. Keep believing in yourself and ablity to heal is the only thing I can offer. Life takes such excruiating turns. We do the best we can.

    They say never blame the victim, and yet its amazing how many healthy people do just that.

    Best wishes, Susanna, always.

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