Posts Tagged ‘health’

Last week I was chatting with Sara on twitterabout my new(ish) job. I was saying how much I like it, and how I am actually really enjoying being back to work full time.

I receieved a nasty email later that day. I’m assuming it was from someone who ran across our conversation on the main feed and came to my blog to hunt down my contact info.

In this email, I was basically told that I was a horrible mother for actually enjoying my job. That I should be heartbroken every day that I drop them off at the sitter where they play with their friends. That being home to do laundry and dishes is more important than providing health insurance for my family. That I should give up all my aspirations of a career because I have children.

I was never sure that I wanted kids. Don’t get me wrong, the boys are my world. I love them more than I can say, and I would never change any of the events that brought those beautiful baby men into my life. But it just wasn’t something I was sure I wanted before they were here. Some young women just know that being a mother is what they want more than anything, that wasn’t me.

Even now I talk to friends who can’t wait for when they can chaperone field trips and be the class mom. That’s not me. I have always been excited about when the time would come that I could return to work full time. That time can a couple years earlier than I had expected, and those of you that come here to support me KNOW how much I struggled with leaving the boys.

I want to be a nurse in 3 years. This is going to involve an insane amount of work for me, and a lot of sacrificing time with my family during the process. After reading Heather’s post this morning, I don’t see how anyone could say it won’t be worth it.

So you know what? I’m sorry if you don’t like that I enjoy my job. I’m sorry if my working full time offends your sense of “womanly duties”. I’m sorry if the fact that I am away from the boys more makes me appreciate the time I have with them more bothers you.

Because it doesn’t bother me and mine, and that’s all that matters.

On Oct 5th we had an appointment at our pediatrician to get the boys their Flu shots. I was relieved to get in there, because with me working at the hospital I am coming into contact with a ton of nasty stuff.

We get in the office, and are called back to the room. Jim and I are both there and we each have a kid in our lap. The nurse instructs us to pull their pants down around their ankles, and she goes out to grab the shots.

C is crying. He knows what’s coming. J is oblivious, happily chewing on his knuckles.

The nurse comes back in. “I’m sorry, we don’t have  shots for them. Their insurance (state provided) hasn’t sent them to us yet.”

Umm. Ok.

So C gets his stay of execution, and we get the boys dressed and back in the car. On the way home, we stop at a local pharmacy and Jim gets his shot, because if the boys can’t get theirs yet we at least both need to be vaccinated.

That was 10 days ago. Since then we have had a local high school close because 400 students called out with Flu symptoms in one day. Our hospital is full to the brim with patients testing positive for seasonal flu and H1N1. It’s only the middle of October.

I called the boys Dr. “Can I pay out of pocket for them to get vaccinated?”

“No, we are not legally allowed to accept cash for them”

WHY THE HELL NOT?

I called the Health Department for our county. “Sorry, we don’t have any pediactric doses. Call back every day, because when we get them they will go fast.”

I called all the Urgent Care facilities. ” Sorry, we ran out already and have been waiting for a shipment for a couple weeks now.”

I called every pharmacy, grocery store…ANYONE who offers Flu shots on a walkin/clinic basis. “Sorry, we only can give them to kids 3 and over.”

I called the boys insurance. ” There is a shortage. Do they have any chronic health problems?”

“No, they are healthy”

“Well, then they will just have to wait.”

So forget that they are aged 5 and under, one of the high risk categories.

Forget that their mother works in Health Care, one of the high risk categories.

Forget that their father has severe asthma, and is in one of the high risk categories.

Let’s just punish them because they have been healthy SO FAR.

Let’s punish them because their father’s full time job doesn’t offer insurance and they have had to use state aid to stay healthy.

That’s what REALLY GETS ME. There are FLU SHOTS sitting in their Dr’s office and they can’t have them because they are on state insurance.

Fuck You.

I was born on March 20, 1983 in a tourist trap of a town in southern New Jersey. I don’t know if I was born during the night or day, I don’t know if my mother had an epidural, I don’t know if she was alone.

I don’t know if she ever held me, or even looked at me.

I do know that I went to the NICU for a week, and then “home” to my foster parents. They cared for me for the first six months of my life. I was not the healthiest of babies, it seems my mother made some not so great choices during her pregnancy and I paid for them early in my life. Luckily, nothing was long lasting, and by the time I was one I had caught up to other little ones my age.

My adoptive parents knew from the time I was a newborn that I was to become part of their family. The paperwork was complete by the time I was three months old, but due to some health concerns the state was not willing to release me into their care as I would be moving 3 hours away from the Doctors who had been treating me since birth. So I stayed.

My Mom kept in contact with my foster parents during my childhood, I would periodically go visit them and always LOVED it there. My foster sister is only a year or so older than me and we always had a ton of fun. I always knew I was adopted. I don’t recall a conversation that involved me being told…it just was.

Being adopted has always been a major part of what makes up me, even at a young age I was so acutely aware of it. In first grade I remember making family trees in class. All the other kids were furiously writing away on their construction paper, chatting with each other about siblings and grandparents. I sat, pencil in hand with my paper blank. Teacher came over “Allison, why aren’t you making your family tree?” I chewed on my bottom lip, a habit that I still have. “I can’t, it will be a lie and I’m not allowed to lie.”

As a six year old I had no real grasp of what being adopted was going to mean in my life. I just knew my family was different from others. I knew that no one else’s brother had dark skin. I knew that my parents weren’t my parents in the same way my friend’s parents were.

As I got older, I understood more. I understood that my biological mother was very young and unready to raise me. I understood that the decision she made was hard, probably the hardest she ever made. I understood that at some point it would be my choice if I wanted to seek my birth parents out. I’ve never held any anger for them, only sadness.

Now I’m angry. I’m angry because I’ve been on a waiting list for THREE years to get non-identifying information. I’m not asking for names, I’m not asking for addresses, I’m not asking for ways to contact them.

I’m asking for my medical records.

Every time I go to the doctor I fill out the little form. Age, birthday, height, weight….family history. I always just write “adopted” next to the box and move on, but my thoughts linger. What am I not getting checked for that I need to be? What kind of genes are in my blood that I have passed on to my boys? I feel like I can’t protect them without all the information.

The State of New Jersey disagrees with me, though if I had alot of money they could be made to agree alot faster. I was born just a couple years after all the records became sealed. It is unbelievable the hoops I have been made to jump through, only to end up back at the beginning…usually on hold. The last time the state contacted me, they told me I would have information within three months. Thats was over a year ago. I have not been able to talk to an actual person since then, and all my correspondance is unanswered.

There has been alot of talk lately of people’s rights. People have a right to health care. People have a right to breastfeed in public. People have the right to own guns. I have opinions on all of these, none of which I’m going to go into now. The thing that sticks out to me is that in most of these debates people usually take the side of the child.

Children have a right to health care.

Children have the right to be breastfed.

I am the child.

I have a right to my medical records.

I went for my physical yesterday. Oh boy.

I signed in, took a seat in the waiting room and pulled out my book. I only got a few pages into it before I was called back. I got taken into a room that had one of those chairs that is only meant for one thing. Getting blood drawn.

Sigh

Oh well. I knew that was going to have to happen, since I don’t have hard copies of my immunization records. They will need to run my blood to see what I am immune to, and then vaccinate from there. I thought at that point maybe I was off the hook for shots, at least until I got they got my blood work done.

I was very very wrong. She very cheerfully informed me that along with the blood draw I would be getting a Tetanus shot(also with Pertussis), a TB test and a Hepatitis B vaccine. I would also need to come back in ten days for the second part of the TB test.

That’s FOUR needles right then, another needle in ten days, plus two flu shots this fall. Holy Shit. This was not going to end well.

I told the nurse, with panic in my voice that I don’t do well with needles. I can give shots, I can watch shots…I can’t get shots. She told me if I wanted the job, I was getting the shots.

Crap. Good point.

She was fast: one shot in each arm, a blood draw in the left and the TB in the right. As she was finishing up she was turning back to tell me what a great job I had done. I chose that moment to pass out.

Yep. I passed out. Fainted. Lost consciousness.

Ya’ll can point and laugh now, I’ll understand. I’m a pansy ass. I didn’t even get a lollipop. What the hell?

I was asked to write my story as part of an open forum. Check it out.
All was well as I sat at my computer desk playing Snood. I had had a long day at work and was looking forward to some time to relax. My roommate had just left and my boyfriend was at work, giving me the house to myself. I had no plans except to watch some TV and eat my takeout I had picked up on my way home. Little did I know, my life was literally about to change forever.

“Man, my chest feels funny.” I thought as I sat there playing. There was an odd sensation in my chest, almost a tightening, and my throat felt a bit thick. I got up from the computer and walked into the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I stood there for a moment with my hand braced on the edge of the sink and my head down. My stomach was a bit queasy at this point and I didn’t want to leave the bathroom if I was going to get sick. After staring at myself in the mirror for a minute and reassured I wasn’t going to get sick, I walked back into my room and resumed my game.

That didn’t last long. Within minutes I was terrified. My heart was racing so fast, I felt like I had just participated in a track meet, rather than sitting in a chair playing a game. My chest was tight, I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to breathe and I was getting waves of chills and pins and needles that began behind my ears and worked their way down my entire body to my feet. “What is wrong with me?” I was screaming to myself. The only thing going through my mind was that I was having a heart attack. This must be what that feels like…what else could it be? I picked up my phone and called my roommate. “Come home! I’m having a panic attack!”

The words were out of my mouth before I even realized I was thinking them. Was that what this was? Why was this happening to me? I am not a stressed out person: I have a good job, great friends and a boyfriend who I love dearly, what did I have to panic about? My roommate came home and took one look at me and told me that we were going to the hospital.

God, I didn’t think I was going to make it. I felt like the 7 minute trip to the hospital took an hour. I rushed up the steps to the emergency room and told the triage nurse that my chest hurt and I couldn’t breathe. She took me into a room and strapped some monitors on me. My heart rate was elevated my blood pressure was high. Not normal for a healthy 22 year old girl. They ordered an EKG and did some blood work; now all I could do was play a waiting game. I lay in that hospital bed, my brain racing. I was sure I was going to die. People didn’t feel like this unless they were dying. It just wasn’t possible.

My test results were all normal. My heart was healthy and there were no blood clots. I was told I had a severe panic attack and given some Xanax to calm myself down. The ER doctor told me to follow up with my family doctor on Monday. I did that and everything they told me to but 4 years later I am still plagued by panic attacks. I have been to the emergency room more times than I can count, and tried every medication they could think of. Yet I am a victim of the attacks. I plan my life around what I would do in any situation if I had one at any given time.

But I am stronger than they are.

I am slowly learning to cope, and control my body without medication. I make myself  go on trips, do things I wouldn’t have been able to do 3 years ago because of the crippling fear of the attacks. I deal daily with chest pain and discomfort, but know that my mind is tricking my body into thinking it is in danger when it is not. Hopefully my progress will continue and one day I will be panic attack free. Right now…I just take what I can get.