My name is Ronnie D.

I knew I was gonna accidentally lock myself out of my own house eventually…

But I didn’t think it was gonna be today.

I’ve been up since 1:30am nursing serious pain and swelling in my jaw from a botched root canal that was performed when I was 12. A root canal that wasn’t completed fully, so the infection remained below the crown. I had pain off and on, and when I was 17, it got to be unbearable again. So I went back to the dentist, another root canal or something was performed, and my whole face ended up bruised.

When I was 21, I was living in Germany and, low and behold, guess what starts flaring up again? Yep. But this time, my wisdom teeth were causing problems too, so I ended up having to have surgery. In another country. In another language. All by myself.

According to the consultation, they were going to anesthetize me, remove my wisdom teeth, and then bore a hole into the side of my jaw in order to scrape the spreading infection from the bone. I was not only excited because as a German university student, all my services were totally covered, but also because I wanted to finally be free of the pain and be able to fully chew on my right side for the first time in almost a decade. I imagined it would solve all the problems.

Now whether that procedure was actually performed or it just didn’t work, I cannot say. All I remember is the two male doctors putting the needle in my hand and telling me to count backwards slowly from some number. I drifted off to them debating which women were hotter - East German or West German.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the recovery room and 2 Pac’s “California Love” was playing softly in the background. (Seriously. The Germans love Pac.) I was groggy and in a substantial amount of pain, and I honestly cannot remember another time my German was so on-point as I requested some pain medication. Once I could stand, I was off to take a cab back to my dorm to recover with my high-strength ibuprofen and some Joghurt.

Of course, seeing me in my disoriented, still somewhat anesthetized state with my bloody hand (because for some reason I wasn’t clotting too well at the needle entry point and kept soaking the gauze), the cab driver decided it was in his best interest to take me on the longest, windiest route back up the hill to pad his pockets a bit more. I knew what he was doing, but I was too groggy to really debate it, so I just waited to get out of the car and into my bed…

Flash forward to like 2003 or 2004, and the tooth is flaring up again. Imagine that. Now I’m pretty lucky cause I have a super sweet post-college, minimum wage employment gig at Starbucks, so I have some benefits but not a lot of money. I get the chance to go into the dentist and get a cleaning and a check-up. Lucky for me, the dentist’s wife also studied linguistics, and they were having problems, so he took a bit of a liking to me. He went ahead and provided the cleaning and check-up at no charge, which was super sweet, though I did feel a bit off about it. But hey, I had to hear the most disgusting sexual comments while making overpriced coffee-flavored drinks every day, so I figured I could feel okay about getting my teeth cleaned. Afterall, you rarely see that kind of generosity anymore, especially in the health care industry. Unfortunately, I had to go to a specialist to get the tooth fixed, so no more freebies.

After a little bit of scheduling annoyance, I make it in. The dentist is a woman this time, and she tells me she’s going to need to pop the crown off, clean out the infection, do another root canal, and then put the crown back on. This is the only option she presents to me - and boy is it pricey - not to mention it’s another god damn root canal, and it seems as if that hasn’t been working. But I go ahead and get the root canal anyways because I trust that she knows best. Afterall, she’s a medical professional.

Well, about halfway through, she tells me that if this one “didn’t take,” I could come back, and they would just pull the tooth. Uhhhh… why was this option not presented to me before? It’s obvious the simple answer is she did the root canal because it cost more money. And if it “didn’t take,” I could come back again and pay some more money. Meanwhile, it’s already been over a decade since I have been having problems - which she is aware of - and there’s not much tooth left to save anyways. Getting rid of it altogether seems like it would have been the most efficient, not to mention cost-effective, way to treat me medically. But oh no - patient health and healing is never really part of the medical equation, and we’re all still supposed to care about health insurance and its inability to control ridiculous health care costs and shady treatment processes that don’t really have the patient’s recovery as the focal point.

But I digress…

Well what do you know, not too long after that expensive and painful root canal, I had swelling and pain again. Unfortunately, in the meantime I had also lost my mind, which meant I had also lost my job, which meant I had also lost my health insurance and money. So there was no way to fix it.

Since I’ve been living with the pain for so long, it’s something I can kind of deal with. I make do with home remedies and crying. I try not to ever chew on that side - which is problematic as the main molar on the opposite side is basically just a filling as the majority of the tooth around it has chipped away by my careless diet of tough-to-chew foods such as ramen and olives. I ride the tide of swelling and less swelling. And I feel disgusting every day.

They say, however, infections such as this that go untreated can move into the lungs and brain and are most often fatal. I constantly have sinus infections, one that moved into my lungs a couple years ago actually. And my brain… well, we all know where that stands. And honestly, I’d really rather not die cause I can’t go to the fucking doctor. Perhaps I’m blowing all of this out of proportion, but I also found myself unconscious on the floor of the Lightrail earlier this summer, and the first thing I had to do upon awakening was quickly stumble away from the stop because I couldn’t afford the ambulance and medical care that was coming. I’m just so tired of being sick with no real means to get better.

To top it off, I have also been struggling with taking in food and keeping weight on as well. In fact, since I was about 95 pounds at the time I passed out on the train, I made it a mission to focus on eating and putting on weight over the last month. So finally, about two weeks ago, I started being irresponsible with the small amount of money I had left and began putting it toward nourishment. And it worked! I got above 100 pounds, and I was feeling a bit healthier. Or at least not like I was going to faint every five minutes.

But with eating, comes chewing. And with chewing, comes serious jaw pain and swelling. How could I have forgotten?? So beyond being in pain and feeling hopeless, I needed to kick myself for being so stupid and irresponsible by thinking I could just eat meals and chew like a normal person.

So all things considered, when I woke up this morning in ridiculous pain, I said forget this, I’m gonna try and apply for AHCSS again since I really need some help. Now, I’ve applied for AHCSS a couple times before when I was making $8 an hour. I was denied because I was making “too much money” - just like I was denied a student loan deferment at the same time for the same reasons. I figured that having no money, no job, no spouse, no roommate, and no real hope would help me have a bit of an edge this time. So I rolled myself some crushed cloves in a tea bag, placed it on the swollen gum area for relief, and went to work on my application.

The initial screening process deemed me “ineligible” for medical coverage, but it said I might be eligible for some “nutrition assistance” which would definitely help me not accidentally starve myself to death, but it sure isn’t gonna help me go to the doctor to fix me. And really, after 20 years of doctors just milking the insurance claims instead of actually fixing the problem, it doesn’t seem like having health insurance is the solution anyways. However, it’d still be nice to know I could go somewhere other than the CVS Minute Clinic with my recent health concerns. But oh well, I guess I just haven’t been a good enough American to be saved…

With this realization, I got my act together and told myself to stop being a little baby. I still have a stack of resumes to send out. I still have to sell all my stuff to try and raise enough money to cover the rent in a couple days. All I really wanted to do though was lay down and make the pain stop, but it just wasn’t an option. It never is.

Luckily, the cloves were starting to kick in, and the swelling and pain was going down. Hooray! I started thinking maybe I could beat this by myself afterall. I started feeling a bit more energetic, so I decided to step out on to the porch and water the potted cacti that have been neglected all summer. When I was out there, I noticed that the mail carrier still hadn’t taken back the “return to sender” mail I had left. This has been a problem for years, at multiple residences. Apparently, stealing mail is a federal offense, but ensuring that the correct mail gets to the correct address is not part of the employees’ federal job description. I’ve taken piles into the post office and explained; the piles have just come back. I’ve been told how to mark the envelope when I place it back in a blue box, so it won’t come back, and the files will be updated; it hasn’t worked. I’ve put my name on the box, and yet and still, I am getting mail for 3-4 different people. And to top it off, I am just tired of using my gas and energy to think I’m solving the problem, only to find it back at my door. And this time, I keep getting someone’s jury duty summons - something they really need.

I figured I’d give it one more chance. I grabbed a red marker, marked the mail, and started outside to clip it to the mailbox at my door with yet another “return to sender” note. Of course, I’m on freaking auto-pilot though because I have to keep my current residence locked up like a fortress due to an ex-boyfriend stalker, a new creepy neighbor stalker, and at least three attempted break-ins since spring. So naturally, I automatically lock the bottom of the screen door as I step out on to the porch. In my pajamas. And no bra. To top it off, I’ve left a candle burning oil essence in the house to help with the pain, and the main door didn’t shut, so the air is running out of the house and the above-average temperatures are running into the house, running up the APS bill which was already over 200 bucks all summer to keep the house at a refreshing 85.

Fuck.

Seriously?

Today??

Well luckily the neighbors were outside to watch me frantically pull at the door, then sit down on the concrete and cry for a minute. They found this funny and laughed. Then they went inside. I felt like shit. My head was pounding. My jaw was killing me. There was no shade. I just wanted to be resting. I just wanted someone to come and help me, but I knew that wasn’t gonna happen. So I began scouring the ground for things I could use to pick the lock. And pick it I did.

Thank god I grew up on the Westside.

And thank god I love soup.

McCain Really Wants Health Care Reform, He Told Me So

A few months ago, I contacted the good ol’ Maverick with some of my issues regarding health care reform. I urged him to please pass legislation before I die due to lack of health care access. This morning, I was lucky enough to find his response in my inbox. Apparently though, he’s hesitant about helping me and millions of other Americans because he’s still more concerned that the old folks will be losing some coverage… and that I may go and get an abortion with your tax money, tarnishing this great country’s moral sheen.

So instead of seeing it logically - that the lack of access to health care for EVERY American causes chronic disease and complicates issues that would be simple to treat in the early stages, thus leading to higher health care costs in the future and an unhealthy environment in which to actually give birth - he’s pushing to make sure more people have access to prescription pills by involving yet more nations in our chemistry consumerism and aiding to the control of big business in regards to our health and well-being.

To Senator McCain, who will be in Arizona with Sarah Palin March 26-27, I’m much better off taking my health concerns to the back of a Walgreens where they can only treat so much, overcharge me for prescriptions which are doubtful in regard to their efficacy, and allow contagious individuals who cannot make it to the hospital to mingle with non-communicable visitors and perfectly ‘healthy shoppers’ who just stopped by to pick up some candy for their depression.

Additionally, McCain is also giving a thumbs up to shady medical insurance practices. For example, as a graduate student at ASU, I opted for the student health insurance plan for an extremely high premium with minimal services. However, because ASU cares about women’s health, my “Yearly Well Woman Exam” was covered by the approximately $900 a semester plan. About three years ago now, I went in. I was then called in for another office visit as soon as possible where I was told that I needed a biopsy… and that my tests results, being questionable for possible cancerous activity, were immediately sent off to a third party testing facility - one that was not covered by my student health insurance.

This, of course, led to a bill that I was in no way capable of paying, which eventually ended up in collections, on my credit rating, and just recently paid off within the last year due to accumulated fees, hassles, and other bills (I’ll bitch about student loans later). The kicker is, they never communicated with me that this is what they needed to do and that it wouldn’t be covered, nor did they get my permission. What’s worse is I couldn’t return to investigate that concern because I no longer had any money.

But it’s OK, Senator McCain, if it is cancer, it’s not going anywhere. Just getting worse, leading to higher health care costs, and an increasing distrust of those in power. Maybe Walgreens could start providing oncology services too - they could have a table in the clearance aisle and have shoppers assist with the diagnosis - afterall, the Republicans have made themselves clear, if you don’t have money to afford proper health care, you’re also not entitled to personal dignity or respect by those providing the services you still can’t afford.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, Johnny. While you’ve gotten your mole removed so you can rest easy at night, dainty little band-aid on your face to match your cosmetic dentistry, I’m posting a wanted ad on Craigslist for health care and someone to stop an infection from spreading into my brain. But hey, it’s cool. I get it. If I, like millions of other Americans, were just smart enough or ambitious enough, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this position. It is our fault afterall. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the distribution of power in this fair country of ours. And terrifyingly, I have it a thousand times better than millions of Americans who struggle every day and just don’t understand how they can never get anywhere.

I’ll see you next week, sir. You can tell me some more stories about your time as a POW, and maybe you could go visit some of our school systems, talk to the children and their families, and get a glimpse of what prolonged, consistent suffering is. In the meantime, keep uttering your catch phrases. We know you “refuse to let the government come between the good American people and their physicians,” but apparently those millions without physicians, just aren’t good Americans. I’m hearing you, loud and clear.

And in my humble, peasant opinion, a good start to “preventative health care” would be ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE. If “we must promote prevention for those conditions that are truly avoidable” please keep in mind, I am a highly educated, hard-working woman with, ontop of many other health concerns, a long untreated dental condition that was a leading cause of death in America’s first colony. I’m happy to personally see the progress our great nation has made… for you and your perfect smile.