YIPE

I remember watching this dog and Foghorn Leghorn duke it out.  At least once an episode, Foghorn Leghorn would do something to antagonize him and then run away until he was just out of range of the leash, only to hear the dog go from low barking to a high "YIPE!" as all of his momentum is suddenly stopped and he lands flat on his back.  

I've been thinking a lot about that "YIPE!" moment.  Andy and I had been making a great deal of progress on our financial and personal goals, motoring along at a good momentum, and then suddenly I feel a strong, implacable yank across my midsection.  I fell hard on the ground, knocking the residual air from my lungs and stunning my senses.  I'm still on the ground, running a number of system-checks (no bones broken, any bleeding? etc.).  To make matters worse, the tether is around my waist, meaning that I am also checking my ostomy with some urgency, a special system-check that is my own disability and burden.  

And in many ways, this is my tether.  

My health is such a complicating factor in our lives.  When it's going well, I'm allowed to get momentum again, to run freely within its radius until I forget it's there.  And then suddenly the rope snags on a tree branch or I hit the full extent of its length and I'm violently pulled backwards.  I've learned to take a slower pace in some areas, to ensure that when I am yanked back, at least it won't be a devastating thing.  I've learned to place pillows on the ground in certain areas to ease the fall.  

I am never allowed to run at my full potential because the burden and restrictions of my healthcare costs inhibit me from running freely.  Having a chronic illness is not a moral failure.  The way we punish people with chronic illness in this country certainly is.  When we say we are against or "not ready for" Medicare for all, we say that we're okay with certain people dying.  When we support a for-profit system, we say that money is more important than people.  This is not the way it has to be; this is not the way it is in many other places.  More and more those other places are looking very appealing for this fact alone.  

Because accessibility to healthcare is literally about survival to me.  It is life-and-death.  I, somehow, need to get my hands on the medication I take every eight weeks that costs $15K here, without going into irreconcilable debt.  It is an ongoing maintenance medication that keeps me healthy and able to function.  Offerings of covering 80% once a deductible is hit, well, that still means I pay $3K every two months until the max out-of-pocket of somewhere between ten and twenty thousand is reached.  At these crossroads, I am running as fast as I can just to stay in place.  There is no more thriving.  On most other metrics we're doing fine; but this one, this one is a devastating blow.  Technically, I have "access" to it; in practicality, the inflated costs of everything are patently absurd.  

These are the worries that keep me on the ground a little longer, wondering when I'm ready to try running again.  Wondering if padding the entire area is possible and/or cost effective.  Wondering what a safe pace to move forward is.  Wondering if there is a nicer tree with less snags or a more generous line.  Always wondering what we could be if the tether wasn't there.  

I spoke with a friend whose tether was their student debt.  Another whose tether was an ailing family member.  Many of these things come down to money; many of these things are felt in grief.  Sometimes a dream to run freely can only be a dream; other times, well, we need to question what kinds of alternatives had yet to be considered.