In It For The Parking

Okay, so for whatever reason, when I'm here at Mom and Dad's I seem to want to save up all the things I'm doing and the things I'm thinking for really good posts... like just writing what's going on isn't good enough.

The problem with that is that it builds up into this massive bundle of things I want to write about and my head wants to explode into a massive confetti-like kaboom of information for you.

So I'm going to go where my head goes first, since that's what's going to make my life easier!

Making My Life Easier
I am working on a post (or potentially a series of posts) inspired by a couple of threads on Patients Like Me. One is on the MS side and one is on the epilepsy side. I asked everybody about what services or products make their lives easier and there are threads going now that are pages long of people telling me different products or services that they've used and ways they've changed doing things in their lives to remove stress that MS or Epilepsy has caused them. That rocks my socks in no small way.

One of the things that the posts have reminded me about is the idea that doing little things leads to having a big thing done. And that little things you can do to alleviate anxiety can lead up to a BIG loss of anxiety.

Fixing The Right Problem First
For me, and for many people with MS and/or a seizure disorder, anxiety is an ever-present factor in life, and when it gets overwhelming, it can cause symptoms. For me, it causes big ole seizures. Every time.

Studying for the bar exam, when I let it, causes me severe anxiety. I get very scared of the "what if I don't do well." I start studying in order not to fail. The worst feeling is, "What if I let down everyone again? What will my friends and my readers think? What about everyone who is supporting me? Will they hate me?"

The thing is, I know, deep down, how ridiculous that is. I can take that test 40 times, and I know that my mom and dad and all of you who care will still cheer me on if that's what I need to do - because at the end of the day, I'll be a lawyer. And if I make the decision not to do it, and to do something else, you'd be there to see what I make of myself, because I'd still try.

I'm afraid of what I'd think of myself.

It's like I'm choosing between being a worthless layabout and being a power attorney, black and white, no grey... when we only live in the grey.

And the worst part is, I think I sent myself to the hospital in July of 2008 because I was so afraid of failing that my body gave me an out. I think I keep myself from succeeding each time by becoming more and more anxious. By making it more and more unattainable.

10 At A Time
So, I'm back to doing what I did when I was practicing music... only it's a little different. Instead of practicing for 10 minutes at a time, I'm doing 10 MBE questions at a time, but trying to get in 50 a day.

Maybe it's like sweeping a walkway for myself, little by little. I will get to the other side of the walk way, and I will have done all the work, if I just do it, even if it's little by little. Even if it's broken up, as long as I keep going.

I have fewer than 20 days left. I've already experienced failure once, and I survived! No one exploded. No one hates me for it. I didn't suffer the humiliation of a million pointing fingers and haughty laughs.

It's a test, like any other. A few questions asking me if I see the issues going on. But I make the problem about more than that. I make it about my life.

I make the question this: "Should a woman with multiple sclerosis and a seizure disorder be allowed to be a lawyer when she feels like this?"

When the question that the CA Bar Examiners are being asked is, "Should Applicant #123456 be allowed to be an attorney, based on her scores?"

I really should stop discriminating against myself.

Hey y'all.

I'm still here, I swear. I'm just at my folks' place in NV, spending time with them, studying for the Bar Exam, and being active on Facebook and Patients Like Me.

I've got a good post in the works, but I know it's been a really long time since an update.

Just wanted to wave hello and let everyone know that I'm doing alright. :)

Hope you all are doing well too! :)

Got it in the mail today.

Rate change effective March 1, 2010
While we strive to keep costs as low as possible, it is necessary to adjust our rates to cover the escalating cost of health care. As of March 1, 2010, the monthly rate on your HMO Saver will change from $329.00 to $427.00. Anthem Blue Cross will usually adjust rates every 12 months; however, we may adjust more frequently in accordance with the terms of your health benefit plan.

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Now, please excuse me for a moment while I ask the insurance company where they expect the policy holder with multiple sclerosis and seizure disorder to come up with another hundred bucks a month... assholes.

Thing is, they don't. They REALLY want to drop me. *lol*

See, this is something that most people wouldn't notice, I don't think, but that going to law school has done for me. It taught me how to look at the world through my Genuine, Certified "So-This-Is-How-They-Screw-You" Lawyer Goggles^TM. And the second that I saw that my premium didn't jump a nice neat $100, but rather $98, I knew something was up. (Who ends a number in a 7? Honestly?!) It bugged me. So I decided to figure out what percentage we were looking at. Sure enough, 29.9%. You know what that means, boys and girls? It means they're not allowed to raise my premium by 30% or more. There's a rule, somewhere, saying they can't. They're raising it as much as they can.

It is rules like this that we need more of.

When I talk about healthcare reform, I am talking about making more rules like this. Maybe Insurance reform is more what is important to me. I dunno.

It seems crazy to me that the amount of money it costs for my healthcare per year is more than I have made per year.

I mean, let's do the math -

Monthly Insurance Premium: $427
Topamax (copay): $30
Cymbalta(copay): $30
Seasonale (copay): $30
Lisinopril/HCTZ (copay): $10
Gabapentin (copay): $10
Herbal Meds: $50
Psychologyist for therapy - One Visit:$90
Psychiatrist, monthly visit: $10
One visit to a doctor if I feel sick: $10
Total before Copaxone even comes into the picture: $697

Copaxone would be $780 (and that's the 30% copay) if I weren't incredibly lucky and having my copay taken care of by Shared Solution's copay assistance program.

If I didn't have Shared Solutions' help, it would cost me $1477 before I even started thinking about things like rent, food, or utilities.

That blows my mind. Lets add to that my student loans. How the hell am I supposed to conquer THAT?

I am NOT a stupid individual, nor am I lazy. I have a bachelor of music in music business from Berklee College of Music. I have a juris doctor from Southwestern University. I am 29 years old. But even my best job didn't pay me enough to do everything up there and take care of all my needs.

Anthem is counting on that.

This company that is supposed to exist to help people is trying to bully me out of my policy by making it too expensive to have the good coverage that I found through them in the first place before we discovered that I was ill.

Well, guess what, Anthem Blue Cross?

You can't bully me.

I will always find a way to keep my ass covered, and if I can't do it, my crazyass awesome family and friends will. Because that's what we do for each other.

Reply to this post and I will tell you what it is I dig about you.
Re-post it to your own journal & spread the ♥.

This whole time, I've been commisurating with other people who have MS, and still feeling like almost no one still *gets* what it's like to be me.

And that's because they don't. They don't have seizures.

Thankfully, the good people at Patients Like Me have finally put together a community for people with epilepsy.

Now, this is not to say that I'll abandon my friends over at the MS side. That would be incredibly lame... but it IS to say that when I was filling out the symptom charts, the neurological symptoms (including mood, memory, seizure (including number, types, and severity)) much more accurately matched the kind of thing that I deal with every day.

What's even more interesting to me is coming to the knowledge that my my seizure disorder puts me in a place where my seizures are more severe and occur more frequently than your average epileptic.

I could be upset about this, and perhaps a small, childish part of me is angry at God for it, if not for one thing that really made me smile.

On the forum there, in a topic about whether or not belief in a deity helps us through our seizures - how we cope with the "why" of having epilepsy, one poster wrote something I 100% agree with. She typed, "We are sick to help others deal and learn. Although each has more detailed reason's, that is what it comes down to."

I think we obviously learn from it ourselves, too. But it's something that rang as true. I mean, at first I thought that developing the seizure disorder was a punishment of some sort, but that was just because of the timing. I mean, I developed the seizure disorder because of my multiple sclerosis... and my first *real* episode that turned into seizure-after-seizures-after-seizure happened 2 weeks before I was supposed to take the CA Bar Exam in 2008. I was hospitalized just before the only CA bar exam where they let in 60% of applicants. How's THAT for bad luck?

But I'm a good person. Like a really good person. I used to put together all kinds of things for philanthropies before I got diagnosed with MS and this seizure disorder knocked me on my ass, and since it has, I still I foster kittens for the animal shelter even. So after praying a bit, I realized, if this is a punishment, it isn't my punishment.

So - yes, I find immense comfort in God through the idea of suffering this near constant physical annoyance because it helps make people better. I would much rather be His instrument to help me and others learn than to simply be a piece of of someone else's punishment, so it really pushed me to find the best way I could use my situation to be an active force to help others learn and to deal with what we deal with every day. To remind them that we're here, suffering from time to time, but still being awesome, and that we deserve their care, empathy, and time.

That's why I keep this blog and why I participate in Patients Like Me, both on the epilepsy and multiple sclerosis sides, as well as forums here and there, and on Facebook and LiveJournal. It's like if I can't go out into the world because I'm going to have unexpected seizures throughout the day, I'll make my mind - my consciousness about the conditions and health and whatever else, travel the ether as much as my body remains still.

I just want to make the biggest positive change possible that I can in the world.

So, I've found a new way to relate to the world for support purposes -- as an epileptic, though I don't have a diagnosis of epilepsy, it's a much easier way for people to understand "seizure disorder," since to the average person, they pretty much mean the same thing. At least from a safety-perspective, it will make it easier to find ways to improve my mobility and self-esteem.

But I never would have found out that there were more people out there, dealing with life the same way I have to, day after day on a couch or a bed, or holding the hand of someone they love just about wherever they go because they don't know when their body will just go *boom* -- if not for Patients Like Me.

So thanks, guys, for making such a difference in my life, and likely, in the lives of so many others. :)