Background: I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was 15. During drumline rehearsal one day, I got extremely dizzy and almost fainted. I remember excusing myself from practice and sitting in the hallway outside the band hall while I tried to collect myself. My sister told me that I looked as pale as a ghost. After school, I went to a physician with my parents, and I saw a blood glucose meter for the first time. My symptoms (dehydration, frequent restroom trips, weight loss, and a blood sugar of 420 mg/dl) were a pretty good indication of Type 1 Diabetes.
I have been told that I do a pretty good impression of this guy.
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In all seriousness, I think having diabetes has made me a stronger person. Over the past 9 years, I have done my very best to never let diabetes stop me from doing something. Eventually, I have no doubt that a cure will come along. I'll manage in the mean time.
The worst part about having diabetes: paying $$$ to take care of diabetes. Growing up, my parents always took care of this. Now that I am a big kid, the responsibility falls on me. I've always done a pretty good job of taking care of myself on my own, but over the past several years I have been taking on more and more of the responsibility for managing prescriptions, ordering supplies, and understanding the health care system. Now that I am married, I get all of those responsibilities plus the fun task of forking over the cash to take care of myself.
Thus the necessary evil: health insurance.
Let me set my position on health insurance. Health insurance seems like an industry where both the clients and the employees know practically nothing about what they are doing. The clients just want their medicine without going broke; they don't care how that happens. The employees of health insurance companies are then trained to help the above group; if you try to be an educated consumer, the typical insurance employee will not be able to answer your questions. All they really know how to do is process people and keep the typical consumer happy. I find the entire system frustrating, particularly because insurance is the only way that I can afford to pay for all of the diabetes testing supplies and insulin pump supplies that I need to take care of myself.
All of this health insurance talk came about because of annual enrollment at Texas A&M. I need to decide whether or not to get insurance through A&M before July 31st. Thanks to Obama Care, I can stay on my parents insurance until I am 26; however, there are questions looming with that option as well. Hopefully I will make a solid decision based on the information I can squeeze out of various health care / prescription companies. But I refuse to let health insurance DOMINATE me or get me down. So health insurance, you are going to get a roundhouse kick to the face (sometime between now and July 31st)!
Does anyone else find health insurance frustrating? Does anyone else watch The Price Is Right just to see the Liberty Medical commercials? :D
