Hypochondria

I've been "under the weather". I won't go into details, but my lower GI tract seemed to just shut down. Except for the part that sends pain signals to my brain. I've never had anything like this before. Ever. And so my poor deluded mind goes straight to "I've got cancer!" and "It must be a tumor". Actually, my mind was kind enough to wait until the middle of the night.
This isn't unusual for me, to entertain such drastic thoughts. Pretty much every headache is a brain tumor for my overworked imagination. I've long ago stopped taking it seriously. But this was new and made me especially vulnerable.
I'm glad to say I'm almost recovered. I've hardly eaten anything in the last four days. A little yogurt with banana. Some green smoothie that Krista made. And I just heard from my friend Nancy that she's had the same thing, more or less, and it seems to be going around. So I guess I can relax about the tumor and all.

Except that I keep thinking about how totally screwed we'd have been, financially, if I really had had something serious. We do have insurance. But it's essentially 'catastrophic' and we'd end up shelling out a lot of money if something bad really happened.
We've had this policy for at least six years now, and we've never used it. Not once. We've never claimed a penny's worth of service from the bastards. And yet, I have this suspicion we'd be automatically denied coverage if we really needed it.
It's more profitable for them to pay lawyers to find ways to deny payment, or delay payment, so that's what they're doing. It's their fiscal responsibility to their shareholders, after all.

So I'm feeling really ready for the Democrats to pass the PUBLIC OPTION. There's absolutely nothing stopping them, except their allegiance to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Just a nice, simple up or down vote in the Senate.
I've been faxing Obama and Harry Reid this week, demanding action. This might be one of those moments where a few more snowflakes make the avalanche.


Last year about this time, I was just recovering from pretty severe dysentery I picked up in Thailand. For days and days I ate nothing but plain Nancy's yogurt and bananas, and here I am again. Yuk.