My father really believes he won't live to be an old man, and it seems to me he's surprised he's lived as long as he has. It's in the simple things that I see my time here being limited. I have to take an inhaler so much that I can't even paint my nails straight because my hands shake so badly. I say it without looking for pity or attention. I really just want to get as much out of this life as I can, and to do that I have to admit to and accept that I have less than perfect health, to say the least. While I'm in such an honest mood with myself...
Every day in America:
40,000 people miss school or work due to asthma.
30,000 people have an asthma attack.
5,000 people visit the emergency room due to asthma.
1,000 people are admitted to the hospital due to asthma.
11 people die from asthma.
I was told by a doctor many years ago that this would kill me if I didn't take care of it...and it's no one's fault but my own that as a child and young adult I didn't take advantage of having health insurance like I should have, and now it's far too big of a hassle for me to get insurance on my own. I guess what I'm trying to say through this is...I don't want to die young. I feel like I should be scared, but I'm not. Just angry at my body and my government for having no help available that's not outrageously expensive or difficult to obtain. I know there are so many more people in the U.S. with worse health problems than me and without health insurance, and that's even more angering. As much as I want children, there are so many reasons I shouldn't. I would never want to pass on asthma to them, and I would not want to raise them in a country that leaves their poor and sick without refuge.
On the statue of liberty it says "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"...only to force them into modernized indentured servitude in order to obtain health insurance.
I really do believe that a lot of times it's the accumulation of the little things that often kill us. We don't notice the water slowly rising until we're drowning. Stress I think is another one of those things. I've been really scared as far as health care goes too... Nathan is kind of in the same boat because of his asthma. A lot of people blow it off as simple, but it's a big deal. Breathing is kind of important. Do you ever wonder how it's shaped you into the person that you are?
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