Being diabetic & poor

I wanted to tell another side to the story that you might not be hearing politically. I won't try to sway your political leanings one way or the other but allow you to make your own mind up.

(And one thing I personally despise is someone coming to me & telling ME how or who I must be or feel.)

The Washington state governor is proposing to cut medicaid patients access to healthcare. They are also proposing to cut in March 2011 access to medications. They also have adult hospice, adult vision & dental care in the cross hairs.

There is more if you want to read the September 30, 2010 press release on the subject:
(http://www.dshs.wa.gov/mediareleases/2010/pr10088.shtml )

Now I do believe that DSHS has to absorb its fair share of cuts. In this economy, the state simply does not have the money to deliver every expectation a citizen has. And there are lobby forces at the state capital at work on just about every single issue trying to muster up the political will for its own causation.

But what I have a problem with is that they take certain medical care things LIKE podiatry or other basic life medical care (sorry my bias but I had to have this. Read my last entry as to why.) and call it "optional care?" Is it optional that I must seek podiatry care to stay out of a wheelchair?

in the following weeks before I have to move, I am going to be calling upon my state legislators (who by the way, they won in the perspective districts this past week) to talk to them about my medical situation. Maybe they can find it somewhere else to come up with the 400 thousand dollars to save my podiatry treatments. I know that there are going to be a lot of push and pull from many other sides to cut taxes and spending. By my life hangs in the balance if this continues.

Living with diabetes (what the hell..)

Since my blog really does not get a whole lot of attention, maybe this is a good time to start a blog session about the major cancer on society that I have, diabetes. Some of the constituents (people) with the disease really do have a wonderful life, from the young to the very old.

But my personal experience with Diabetes has been quite the opposite.

And you cannot measure or base one persons experience and success of the disease to another. Yes, there some mileage markers in the disease and there are treatments depending on how bad the disease is and how to effectively treat it.

WIthin the past decade from 2000 to 2010, I have had retina reattachment with diabetic blowout in the back of my eyes, two partial toe amputations, multiple hospital stays in Bellingham and Clark County for uncontrolled blood sugars, staph foot infections, degradation of my feet to point that now I am going to the foot doctor about once or twice a month for cutting out dead tissue without any pain medication, they call this debridement.

I have also had two stays in nursing homes for 30 to 90 days stays with intravenous antibiotics fed through tubes up my arm, up capillary blood vessels or return blood flows to my heart where the intraveneous solution was dispensed into my heart and put throughout my body.

I also have full body neuropathy, meaning all the feeling in my body is dulled to the touch, I also have no taste or smell either, its all numbed. I barely can eat much anymore.

I have heard all the comments about LapBand, stomach stapling and other surgical interventions. This would not be successful on me since I allready believe that I have kidney damage from the exposure of two decades of having the uncontrolled diabetes. The stomach control procedure also take a psychological couseling & every other avenue BEFORE they are tried. One in particular, gastric bypass is irreversible. So if you go back to your same old emotional or out-of-control eating habits, you will still gain the same weight back or have other complications from what I have been reading over the past few years since these surgeries became popular because of medical advertising.

I have also had butt crack skin removal surgery which was my first uncontrolled skin infection. I was not able to sit down for nearly a year while that area healed. Having Rocephin antibiotic injections along with antibiotic pills to try to attempt to kill it.

Then I moved back to Clark County, Washington in 2005. Boy, did my medical situation improve for better. No, it meant the monthly or twice-monthly debridements. I still use crutches & had other surgeries to help with my feet and other issues. Bu the frequent hospitalizations stopped and I am out of the wheelchair for the past five years.