Living day to day with Type One Diabetes is not what many people think of. Sure, I'm supposedly a little friendlier with needles and blood than most (supposedly because I still get queasy around other people's blood and other people sticking me with needles...), but for the most part, anything you can do I can do too. With the help of some technology and medication, I can (and do!) lead a fairly normal life.
I joke about my condition on the days I don't want to curse it. I pretend to be in an old western, with my medical devices "holstered" on each hip. I call myself a cyborg and you get the quip.
At the same time, I wonder if you're understanding what I'm actually getting at.
While I am almost completely normal, I wouldn't be able to live like a normal person without my medications and devices. Thank goodness my father's employer offers amazing healthcare otherwise we'd still be paying for the first devices when I'm already on my second and third.
Other Type One patients aren't as lucky.
These things are expensive, but it's the price we pay to keep living and contributing to our families and communities. None of us chose this disease; while Type One is not completely genetic, no one has figured out what in our environments sets off the markers already in our chromosomes.
It infuriates me that budget chief Mick Mulvaney said in a recent statement, "The question is, who is responsible for your ordinary healthcare? You or somebody else? That doesn't mean we should take care of the person who sits at home, eats poorly and gets diabetes."
Don't tell me it's my eating and exercise habits; I ate (and loved) all my vegetables as a kid and was always very active. In fact, I have the problem of fewer injection sites because I don't have any fat to inject my medication into (and injecting into muscle just plain hurts.)
To get down to it, I (and roughly 1.25 million other Americans) are utterly dependent on expensively synthesized medication. Many (if not all) of us are unable to cover the costs of living with our auto-immune disease out of our own pockets.
But somebody does have to pay for them.
That's why many like me rejoiced in 2014 when The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act leveled the playing field and mandated that pre-existing conditions (including type one diabetes) be covered at no additional cost by insurance companies. Before then, thousands were denied any form of coverage or were forced to pay premiums that were hardly any better than paying for everything out of pocket. This is one of the very limited number of things where I can honestly mean it when I say, "Thanks Obama!"
But how does this relate to you killing me? I'm so glad you brought that back up.
I know and agree that Obamacare isn't/wasn't the best, but the fact that under this administration (WHO I VOTED AGAINST) my ability and access to affordable healthcare is under threat means that those of you who voted them in have put a real kink in my cord.
You do have a chance at redemption though, if we work together. Nothing has been written in stone yet for President Trump's healthcare reform. Now is the time to find out what is actually on the bill and talk to your Senators and urge them to make the appropriate actions to protect people pre-existing conditions. Remind them that just because my body is different does not make me any less human, or any less American.
To be clear: I AM NOT ASKING for my medical bills to be completely covered and to be allowed a free ride. I DO ask that those against socialized healthcare think logically and be reasonable. If the current course continues, I can (and probably will) be completely denied healthcare, or offered healthcare at a very high premium, which will force my family into debt over time, and in the end I will die prematurely from inadequate care BECAUSE I WAS BORN THIS WAY.
Is it too much to ask for an equal opportunity to live a normal life?
