Some things never change, it seems

The amazing interfacing with companies that have their tendrils wrapped around Medicare (age puts you there, eventually...).

So as someone in the Cath Club, I talk to my providers about the next shipment of catheters, and I ask them to send me more of the goop they provide because their goop is better than the stuff I've been getting from Amazon, and could they send me more? What little they send isn't enough for that full load of catheters, after all...

So this sheaf of paper arrives, asking me to do all this justification, asking for information regarding the stuff the insurer doesn't want to provide and why exactly do I need it?

There is, alas, no "try sticking a hose up your dick without lubricant, and you tell me how well that works out for you" check box.

I had also thought "Just send me a bill and I'll write you a check" would be a good middle ground. Apparently not. It's spend a couple of hours trying to puzzle out this form and also send us a check. instead. And all this for the tremendous figure of $8. Can't just send a check. Gotta have a multi-page form.

Clearly the people in the news who are bloviating over "Obamacare" versus single-payer versus oh, let the insurance companies take care of everything because the Free Market is God... aren't in the cath club, fighting against people who'd rather put profit over comfort. Or safety....  Bad, bad things can happen if you don't cath as much as you actually need to, no matter what the people who have never met you have made decisions about your needs and thus no interest in finding out what your actual needs are.

In other news, I saw an interesting YouTube offering about the difficulties, maybe impossibilities, about curing cancer, specifically that there hasn't been a cure because there isn't just one cause for cancer. Yeah, cancer's uncontrolled cell division and everyone who has it experiences that particular symptom, but there are so many different reasons that cancause this, that there isn't a single way to stop it. Does this sound familiar to us MSers? We have symptoms in common, but the MS expression/presentation is different for everyone who has it, maybe there isn't just one problem that needs solving? So why do people always reach for the same three or four DMDs, all of us MSers come to realize eventually that at best, they maybe work and even better maybe don't screw you up too awful much... maybe.

Well, that's a great way to lift your spirits, ain't it? So, in the face of all that, what do we do?

Enjoy what can be enjoyed. Make tea. Smell the freshness of the winter air, especially on the days like we occasionally get here in southern Cal that warm up enough to be fun to go outside. Talk to a friend and laugh.

No side effects. So, as best you can...

Enjoy simply being alive. It's possible, it's there waiting for you. Just find it.