My hero

My primary partner, Monkey, works in community mental health. He does a very, very difficult job with, sometimes very, ill patients on a very tight budget. He hears horrible stories of abuse and neglect from the histories of many of his clients. Sometimes they take out their pain on him by yelling and threatening him. Sometimes, thankfully rare, he loses clients to suicide or overdose. He goes through this every day at the office. Every day he gets up and goes back again for more. He does it because he loves his job. He cares about these people who no one else are helping. He believes that each client has the ability, with some help, to be stable, happy, sober, whatever. When he worked exclusively in addictions he always believed that if some one blew out of treatment that they would come back and, next time, they would succeed at getting sober. Every. Single. Time. Monkey is one of my heroes. How he manages to have worked in community mental health for the past 12 years and not become jaded and bitter has always amazed me.

He posted on his own blog yesterday about his work. You can read it here. He is an amazing guy, my Monkey. I'm so proud of who he is and the work he does. :)

Just a quick IV bag and then I'll be going.

Last week I must have picked up a little bug. I had some intense gastrointestinal issues. I won't go into TMI-land but I will say that it was unpleasant, lasted 4 days straight and really had me struggling with staying hydrated. I was fine other than this one little issue but this "little" issue was starting to cause some serious worries. On the 4th day of this the advice nurse decided it was time for me to get checked out. My Saturday afternoon was spent at the urgent care center. Thankfully it wasn't very busy at that time. That morning I had started eating yogurt in hope of making my guts happier. By the time I got seen it seems the yogurt was doing the trick and I was doing much better. I was, however, dehydrated so they gave me some IV fluids and electrolites while they waited for my labs to come back, just in case. Between the extra fluids and the yogurt working its happy gut magic, I was feeling great by the time I left. The labs did confirm I was fighting something off but nothing looked too scary. They finished up pouring the fluids into me and gave me the list of "come back right away" symptoms I was sent home to eat more yogurt and keep downing fluids. Isn't always the way that the minute you arrive at urgent care you start to improve?! But at least I got a good boost in my hydration and the peace of mind that I wasn't seriously ill.

While I was kicked back with an IV in my hand (my arm veins were shy because I wasn't well-hydrated) I had a moment of profound gratitude. For $35 I was getting a lot of "just in case" care. The IV, the labs, the chat with the FNP were all available to me. It wasn't unreasonably extra care considering my symptoms but it is more than I would have gotten if I had to pay marked price for these services. I remember what it was like without insurance. I'm lucky to have such good coverage. It is ridiculous that I have to be "lucky" to access health care. Just because my partner has a good job, because our state requires fair treatment of queer couples so I can be on his insurance, because we have the money to pay for employee spouse coverage, because we have the money for the co-pay. Just because I'm lucky. It horrifies me when I think of all the people who need health care, not a "just in case" check like I did. Our system is fucked. The lottery is about luck, not people's lives. ::sigh::