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My husband just switched jobs, which is always a headache when it comes to health insurance. If you are lucky enough to be allowed to start right away, with no waiting period, there's still that period of limbo when the old insurance has been cancelled (and man, they don't waste any time doing that) and when your new insurance is in the system.

Of course, Olivia needed insulin while we were in limbo. I went to CVS to pick it up and it was going to cost $335.99 for three bottles of insulin. Needless to say, we can't afford that.

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Finally, finally, finally, we have health insurance again, which means I can get more strips and more insulin and don't have to go begging.  I hate asking for stuff - it makes me feel like a leach.

I didn't realize how much it was stressing me out until those little plastic cards showed up in the mail.  It was literally a weight off my back.  My neck wasn't so tense and my shoulders weren't up around my ears. Such a relief.

Of course, Olivia's endo at Joslin isn't covered on this new insurance and most likely won't be, as their condition for covering out-of-network providers is that there can't be any such providers on their books.  Of course there are two endo practices with them.  I have a call in to Olivia's pediatrician to see what she thinks about attempting to get Joslin covered but I'm also going to ask for a referral to the endo group at UMass, in Worcester. 

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I'm a self-proclaimed adventurer. I love to try new things, go to all sorts of places, and I'm always up for a challenge. So college seemed like it'd be one huge adventure in life. But three years ago, I sat down to apply to colleges and had no idea as to what I wanted. Plus there was one major issue looming over me: my health.

I've always known that diabetes would keep me a little more cautious than most. But I've never let it stop me. I played sports, I took trips, I even went zip-lining through the jungle last year. Diabetes means that I plan much more than the average person, that I don't just pick up and leave without extreme consideration. I never thought it would hold me back.

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I don't know a lot about the Canadian universal health care. What I have learned has been in dribs and drabs, culled from friends and from the few Canadian posters to the Children With Diabetes parents email list. I knew it varied from province to province but assumed that most diabetes supplies were covered.

And then I read this post by Andrea, over at A Garden of Na Mmoy. She has type 1 diabetes, although she doesn't post about it very often. She has a few other posts about diabetes and she's an eloquent writer no matter what the subject - you should check her out regardless. But that post really opened my eyes to the limits that any insurance, universal or private, puts on our health.

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I have voted in every presidential election I've been eligible for. Even casting an absentee ballot my senior year of college, which I believe was my first presidential election. All of which seemed rather obligatory to me. I voted because I was supposed to and because it was my right and privilege to do so.

Until this year. I waited in line for about an hour this morning to cast my vote. I've never waited more than several minutes to vote in an election. This is my first presidential election since being diagnosed with diabetes. The first presidential election that I was actually interested in, paid attention to and in some ways looked forward to. The first election where I really looked into the issues to base my vote on how the person in the Oval Office would affect my life.

Selfish? Yes. But I have reason to be selfish this year.

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Last month, a friend of mine had to build a website for a class project, and the site focused on people with diabetes who had multiple health problems.  I was really struck by the title and slogan that she came up with for the project; it was "Diabetes Plus: because it's rarely just diabetes."

Those words rang true for me, as I know they do for many people, because I'm a person with type 2 diabetes, and I have several other health problems, too.

On top of diabetes, I live with congestive heart failure and related issues, obstructive sleep apnea, asthma, acid reflux, a hiatal hernia and other gastrointestinal issues, migraines, and sinus/allergy problems.  There may be something I'm forgetting, but you get the idea.

And there's an equally crazy list of medications that accompanies that list of health problems.  They are as follows:

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There's an old saying about leading a horse to water but not being able to make him drink. I've been trying to make a certain horse in my life drink water for some time now.
 

I recognized the signs a long time ago. I knew she needed to see a mental health professional. I begged, I pleaded, I guilted. I tried to reason with her. But it's hard to do that long-distance. And over e-mail.
 

I consider myself a good listener. Someone who can listen to someone non-judgementally and offer advice. But there comes a point when experience isn't good enough.
 

It's hard to watch other people suffer. And this person was suffering. There were so many issues that need to be addressed and she always said she was too busy. It's even harder to watch someone suffer when I have experienced the benefits and relief that come from professional mental health help.
 

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When I first moved away for college back in early 2007, my health was really at its worst. We still had no idea what was going on with me...just a list of symptoms and doctors who couldn't tell me what was wrong. So I moved out on my own into a 1 bedroom apartment a little over an hour from my mom's house and less than an hour from my dad's house.

The first semester was extremely rough. I had several breakdowns on my bathroom floor, several moments of desperation, several calls home that left my parents worried. I tried to stay on top of things, but the stress made it nearly impossible.

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Health insurance seems like a big mystery to me.  Not for nothing, but employer to employer the employee contribution, access to services, co-payments, and deductibles vary so widely it seems that changing jobs - and therefore health insurance - is like moving to another planet.

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