In 2014 I began receiving access to medicaid in PA. I had no idea what this meant, except that I was directed to apply for medicaid during the Affordable Care Act application process on healthcare.gov. It asked me if I had a disability or pre-existing condition. Yes. So, I was one of the folks who had a low income to benefit from medicaid expansion and to benefit from state health care. This care helped me because eventually I could no longer work and had a struggle to get by in that situation. Due to an assault, I sustained a traumatic brain injury, which went undiagnosed at the time of the violent attack (random crime incident where I got brutally beat in the head) in 2010. I was dizzied with the many symptoms of post concussion syndrome for three years, and I began to speak up and say, something’s wrong. In 2013 I finally got referred to a concussion rehabilitation program from a knowledgeable therapist. Thanks to medicaid I was eligible for quality care that I could afford from the regional concussion and head injury specialists who understood my condition. In addition to the acquired traumatic brain injury, I needed doctor’s care, specialist care, and mental health counseling to manage conditions I have had since adolescence, which are a sleep disorder similar to narcolepsy (idiopathic hypersomnia), panic attacks and long term depression. Now after being attacked you can add PTSD and chronic pain, and for sure the depression and panic only increased. I was able to get the physical therapy sessions, cognitive (brain retraining) therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, vestibular therapy (helped with vision and balance impairments after tbi), psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, group therapy for women with tbi, psychotherapy for managing my symptoms, the aftermath of trauma, losing my job and normal life, as well as the lingering depression and anxiety that cut into my daily ability to function as I would hope to. If not for the PA Head Injury Program (a state waiver that allowed me access to 9 months of multidimensional rehabilitation) and 2 years of medicaid to ensure I had access to medicines, check ups with my doctor to manage my different care needs for different conditions, and to help me with frequent mental health counseling sessions, I would not have been able to make any improvements or lessen any troubling symptoms, I may not be able to read or write now , I may not be able to go out in public alone or at night, and I may not have been able to try out different work options to help me find out and adjust to my new capacities. Let alone, I would never have been able to maintain social connections or afford any medication or the wraparound rehab services that were so significant in adjusting to life after acquired brain injury and trauma. At the end, when I was moved from medicaid to medicare a few months ago, I began to think about how instrumental PA medicaid was in reshaping my life by providing me access to the multiple kinds of health care that I needed. Who knows if I would even be here without it, or if I would have lagged behind or been trampled over years ago. medicaid made an astronomical different in my care and my life during the years of 2014-2015-2016, as did the state head injury waiver program. I can say that with confidence and I am asking all to consider stories like mine, where my life was upended in a random tragic incident, and where I also had long term pre-existing conditions that were worsened by the injury I got as an adult. Consider me and others who have health care needs that are as diverse as we are. It is our human basic right to have access to appropriate and dignified care. Give us our rights!
Monthly Archives: February 2017
save title for last
this is going to be
some kind of
grand
literary
psychologically raw
uncomfortable
master piece.
i do believe that i used to grandiosely aspire
to masterpieces every time.
now this was when pcs
were the new work station.
when typing on a word processor
was still a revolution in manuscripting editing.
when the cathode ray tube in the back of the monitor
seemed normal being as big as the whole desk.
before many of my regrets.
but still after and during lots of them.
see there are myriad regrets.
waiting to be transformed,
reperceived, thanked, released, remembered more lightly
as lessons.
knowing i have existed through all these lessons,
what are the lessons now
i can treasure from this time
this time of 2017 after obama
during deportations
and immigration bans on muslims
this time of giving power to racists and corrupt business men.
owners who are owning all of us.
they are coming in. this clown show
with sinister un feeling masterminds behind the strings
this time of confusion for – i am every day people –
who are moving about out there, alone, together,
with palpable dread, unraveling, anger, paranoia,
learned helplessness.
i’m nurturing this nostalgia for other
for other places
other people
other centuries
other concepts
other unsolvable problems
other hopefulness.
so immersing in fictions,
memoir,
buddhist essays,
korean drama period pieces,
writings about undermining whiteness.
which this last phrase reminds me
i want to write a thank you
to whatsup
the organization.
which over the last seven years
has provided space, meaning, hope, learning,
connection, work, understanding, emotion,
validation, identity, refuge, counterculture, norms new to me,
something to be anti, something to struggle for, something to emulate,
what is all of this…
it’s what i needed at that time
and now its shell i may need less
or in different senses,
still trying to figure out what i can give to it and what i can get.
maybe i took things too far,
that’s lessons.
i felt like no one understood unless they had done a thorough study of systemic racism,
from the roots, had analyzed whiteness and its toxicity, had read
all the articles and been to the anarchist bookshop plus the actions and held signs.
what did it help me to feel.
it helped me learn about the projected and invisibilized identity of whiteness that i didn’t choose and that in some sense contributed to my getting hurt.
was it about race. was i attacked more, beaten harder, with more rage, as a white woman. was it the same as would be for anyone. people said it was because of this. who said this. people like police officers – ha. mental health providers i sought out in the traumatized haze. coworkers. anyone who heard the story, who was white.
so what did it mean that i could be so hurt, felt confused like did i deserve what i got, for what has happened on a larger scale, in the bigger picture of oppression, due to white fragility and toxicity. due to the violent nature of racist society. where did i fit in there.
and actually only when i began to operate
by picking into pieces
who i was, what this identity, what about this fluid sexuality, what about this messing with gender, what about this abuse, this class, this mental illness, this particular situation i’ve grown through. i realized, i learned by lesson, i don’t want to be the protected white woman. i am not her. i am not that. leave me out of this. i will unlearn and act of my own accord to dismantle this system and to exist with presence and awake, alive.
unlike before awake, alive, i think were far far away. there was thickness, hardness, layers of sound barrier, and bubble wrap, between me and the real things. between empathy and my heart. between narcissism and fantasy world. between isolationism and pride.
broken barriers. broken body. broken self. free from psyche. from from self. free for construction. free for being with. free for escaping. for blowing away like smoke. it’s ok to be – who am i. it’s ok – really. it’s ok to be – not who i was. in thich nhat hanh’s words – not the same, not different. not the same, not different. me before – me after. that’s not separate, not one. and now i’m learning. because of the seven years cycle. the seven year itch. not the same as before. not the same as right after. now on to another way.
what is this way. learning. what is this another. lessons. i can’t see it. i don’t know it. it is a combination of the multiples i’ve already lived. plus a combination of infinite combinations of the days from now until the end. which of course is not exactly the end.
the third way. the middle way.
ptsfree 