epitome

Earlier this week, my boyfriend and I split. I was two months from getting domestic partner benefits from his company. We were just waiting for the two years of living together mark to qualify.

In November I had surgery and they found something alarming, but I did not realize how alarming it was. Without insurance, I never followed up.

I ended up in the ER the other night for an infection (related to my Crohn's Disease) that has been raging for months and that never really goes fully away.

The doctors asks me how my back is feeling. I'm like WTF!? He said that the growth on my spine has grown and that is indicative of cancer and asked if I followed up with the appropriate tests.

I hadn't.

No insurance company is required to carry me. I cannot acquire private insurance. I am too successful for state or federal coverage.

No hospital has to do anything for me because I have no complaints and do not present with problems related to that. They have to treat your immediate needs. Something that may kill me does not matter...it must be killing me. Everything has to be paid at time of service.

I live OK, but I spent the savings that covered a years of living expenses over the last year and a half when I was so sick. Now I get my bills paid each month and have little left over. I depleted my savings. Most people do not have even six months saved up...I did great by having a year's worth...so don't dare bitch about personal responsibility.

I have to see a ton of specialists.

My father became permanently disabled when he fell 15 feet at work and broke a few dozen bones. He ended up with a worker's comp settlement, disability and social security that equals enough to sustain the modest lifestyle he had before the accident.

I have to talk to his lawyer that fast-tracked his social security, and who also specializes in Medicare.

The only option at this point appears to be walk away from my house and my income. Move into my fathers basement and not earn more than a few hundred dollars a month.

I will then become YOUR burden. Your tax dollars will have to pay for my living expenses and my health expenses.

If you are against universal coverage, then I do not feel the least bit bad about you paying for me. The system you are so against is why I may no longer be allowed to be self-sufficient.

If you are for universal coverage, thank you for having a heart, caring about your fellow man and I am sorry for being a burden on you.

I am hoping that with the serious threat of cancer (the doctor says the growth is what is alarming...the thing itself isn't always harmful if it doesn't grow, but rapid growth like mine is usually never OK), I can get some kind of coverage through the government that I can pay for.

If you are against universal coverage, just remember that a lot of people that support themselves are squeezed out by the greedy insurance companies. The poor people already get all of the insurance they need. It is those that are solidly in the middle class that are squeezed out and left to fend for themselves.

It's ironic that I may have to stop being successful and mooch off the government to possibly live...rather than just pay for the insurance nobody will take my money for.

Please think about me the next time you argue against universal coverage. There are probably millions of me out there. It may be many more months before I even find out if I have cancer rapidly growing in my body.

The real "death panels" are the insurance companies. The one's that reject my applications for coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

Thanks for reading. I hope I have changed the perception of just one person on GFY. I have argued in this debate often as it was always personal to me. Now it may have become a matter of life or death.

I will probably being lying lower than I usually do. This has been the worst week ever with the double whammy of losing the love of my life and being told I may have cancer and then having no way to find out right now. It still hasn't fully sunk in.