Processing in the Pool, Health Insurance Grieving

I went lap swimming the other day to clear my thoughts.  I find I leave the pool a more whole person than when I entered it.  

I had not had the chance to swim for a couple weeks--the hardest part of working out is getting to the gym.  Packing my swim bag, getting in the car, finding a locker, wrestling with my swim cap, and the uncertainty of knowing whether there would be an open lane when I arrived, it felt like too much work when my mind was already overloaded.  

But that first dive in, the shock of the cold water everywhere at once, my mind can only be present where I am, if only for a moment.  And then I could count the lengths, deciding what I wanted to do for my next set.  

Other thoughts meander in and out as I circle back once again and again as I swim the seventy-one lengths to meet my mile.  Occasionally, the count slips and I spend a whole length or two attempting to remember which one I was on, passing the time very effectively as I let my body complete the muscle memory circuit, one hand reaching and then the other, legs independent of all else in continuous motion, breathing timed within the stroke for optimum efficiency.  

When an idea pops up that needs more attention, though, it stays as long as it needs to.  

I have run through many hypothetical situations, how I would have wanted to respond better in a past situation or creating a scenario and playing it out in my mind as a potential future event.  I have also used the space to organize the scattered ideas and emotions of a particular event to make sense of them, to find the words I needed to articulate something murky or clouded by other factors.  

I always leave the pool a more whole person than when I entered it.  

There are a number of concerns that required sifting in this latest swim.  

• A patient and I had had a misunderstanding between us, and I needed to sort out how to let that go, owning my role in the situation without owning her reaction and the guilt that implies.  
• I recently had my first experience calling a family member to tell them their loved one had passed.  I knew that this ten-minute conversation was a pivoting point in their life and felt the gravity of that.
• We are in a season of change:  so many people I know are in a state of flux right now, where there is significant shifting and upheaval and uncertainty.  
• As part of that season, Andy and I are sorting out our plan forward from here, attempting to allow some space for connections to happen organically.  We are also getting a better grounding on what our basic needs are, drawing a fence around where we want to restructure, simplify, and focus.  
• And most importantly, I am investigating different health insurance options.  

Regrettably, I have a lot of experience sorting through my major medication plays out in these arenas.  I would be so happy to be wrong somewhere; being right has been both validating and soul-crushing at the same time.  Yet, I still have to ask questions.  I am grateful that I've mostly been met with persons taking my questions seriously, that I have not been given a "well, just read the plan," with an implied "and stop overreacting."  So far, I am met with sympathy but not solutions--it's too early yet.  

Somewhere around lap twenty, my brain went:  "The US healthcare system is normalized extortion."  I nearly stopped mid-stroke.  If a medication costs ten dollars, I'll pay it; if it costs a thousand dollars, I will find a way to pay it.  Nowhere else in the world do these medications cost the amount we pay here, where we as a collective pay far more for healthcare for poorer outcomes than the rest of the industrialized world (source, source, source, source, all just from a quick search).  On an individual level, we know that we have to plan, that we will find what the maximum out-of-pocket is by March or April.  There are many plans that have a max out-of-pocket amount higher than what can legally be deposited tax-free into an HSA ($7,300 for a family plan), meaning that we cannot even break even.  

Oh, and the bones in our mouths are on a different scale altogether, because mouth-bones are a luxury, I guess.  

So, my heart was engaged in two directions that stretch it, between exercise and grieving.  It is an injustice.  And it is real.  And it is exhausting.  The problem does not go away-- a chronic illness existing within a systemic problem is not a great combination.  Which means that I have talked about this before and will do so again.  The wound cannot close; and this is a wound particularly real to me at the moment.

I take some comfort that I'm doing the right things--I'm investigating in different arenas, to identify our best options and understand them in their entirety before moving forward.  At the same time, I mourn its necessity.  I feel myself reverting back to survival tactics that have gotten me through other crises in my life, which doesn't feel great and mentally puts me in those spaces again.  

There is tension in these processing spaces, knowing the value of creating a space where that is possible but also acknowledging the anxiety of uncomfortable truths and the burden of setting up the ingredients for such a space.  A swinging pendulum of processing and distraction and back again, allowing it to swing freely without forcing it to one slide.  

Flowing with the stroke.  Arms and breaths timed together.  Only able to be present and immersed in the moment.  Everything can wait until the other side of the locker room, if only for now.