This week

Well, as I mentioned on facebook, the good news is that there is a less invasive treatment available , at a fraction of the cost in terms of dollars and stress on my body.  The bad news is that the treatment is not covered by my  insurance company,   The treatment is an IUD, and the Pennsylvania Emplyees Benefits Trust, administered by Capital Blue Cross and Blue Shield does not cover contraceptives for any reason.   The other good news is that my pharmacy provider (NOT my benefits provider, please let's be clear) has a payment plan in order that I can get this treatment without having to resort to selling myself on the streets. 

One the one hand, I am ticked because I am not using this as a birth control method, but on the other, so what if I were?  Heaven forbid women 's health care plans should provide them with access to affordable birth control.  The people who make these decisions, apparently, don't want women to have access to birth control, don't want women to have access to safe, legal abortions, and dare I say, probably want us all to go home and be good little girls. I don't know, if I were of child bearing age and found myself with an unplanned pregnancy, I could stand to have an abortion. I don't think I could, but I have never been sexually abused and wound up pregnant, I have never been pregnant for the tenth time in eleven years, quite a lot of the things that have , unfortunately, happened to a great many women have never happened to me.  Therefore, I continue to believe that women are the best judges of what needs to happen in their lives.  Not legislators or insurance companies. 

On the other hand, as my friend, Marsha, pointed out, this is exactly what happens when you take the decision making process regarding health care issues out of the hands of the doctors, nurses and patients and place it into the hands of pencil pushing bureaucrats.  My cousin, Jana, sent me an e-mail regarding a newscast she saw in which this treatment is being hailed as a tremendous breakthrough in pre-cancerous and some early stage cancerous conditions.  It's  a thousand dollars as opposed to a hysterectomy which would  run, I expect , into  the tens of thousands. It's less stress on a woman's body and for a woman who is still of child bearing age, this treatment  holds out the promise of continued fertility.  But, no, we might go hog wild and start having S-E-X without benefit of governmental approval, and Heaven knows, we don't want that!  

Oh well, whatever..... as I pointed out before, there is a treatment, there is a way I can afford it, and I am thankful  and consider myself damned lucky for both reasons.  Besides, if nothing else, this little wake up call has started me, at long last, on the road to losing weight.  And I'm feeling better every day for that.  I don't have a clue how much weight I've lost, because I quit weighing.  For years, every time I started a diet,  I would weigh every night , and if I gained I'd get depressed, feel bad, then eat.  Now, I just do what I know needs to be done and figure it'll all work out eventually.