Universal Health Care is something really really important. As a mother of three who has sometimes used the medicare system, I know firsthand what it is like to be shoved into an overstuffed clinic to see a doctor who has never seen me before and will never see me again...episodic treatment for chronic conditions. In England, Universal Health care is something they are both proud of and deeply burdened with. No matter how crowded any U.S. clinic may be, England can beat it on any day of the week, they are just extremely overpopulated given the land mass. And really, most of the world lives this way... I think, though, that we can learn from them and improve on the system for ourselves as Americans. Here are the pros and cons of our experience thus far.
Issues: 5 minute sick appointments! Doctors don't know enough about you to treat you individually. The elderly really take the hit, becoming disabled and invalid too easily, because all treatments cannot be exhausted for every single person. The people do not take charge of their own care, but run to the doctor at every ache....because the waiting list to see a specialist is often 3 or more months.
Benefits: One can ask for what they need and be sure that they will get it in due time, ie vasectomies, tonsils out, breast and prostrate cancer screening, pap smears, contraception... One never needs to go without medicine that could be helpful, as it always given and always for free. Once one does have a chronic condition, they are seen by the same specialist every 3-4 months and evaluated.
Now, we had an awful experience when we got here because the kids both developed ear infections that I could not treat, and antibiotics are not given for ear infections here in an effort to help the human race in the long run. I just made a trip to the doctor every day and demanded that they were not improving, and eventually we got them, but not before Auroras ear drum burst.
Since we know the system now, we are just more vigilant. I demanded Mathias see a specialist for his chronic breathing and he is now under good consistent care. Aurora recently had 4 x-rays to rule out a possible ankle fracture, at no co-pay or deductible to us, and without a referral.
The answers for how to do this the best way for a country as large as America are not easily come by. I encourage you to think about, and send your thoughts to our president, because he as asked for them, and real stories make a real difference.
Peace,
So Mathias says to me the other day, "If I eat a lot of sugar then I feel like I'm flying". He has been getting up at night to raid the pantry. I am thinking, with my eccentirc personality and Kevins too, we really have to watch this boy as he develops.
On the other hand, I know his searching and I cannot condemn it :) How great it is to fly! There are those moments, those days, those seasons, when everything lines up, and we just stream. There were so many of these moments in NC that sometimes I feel wild with grief, gone in my crazy attachment. And some days this happens even now, this wonderful flying.
And there are those moments, those days, those years, when we have flown so high that the world does not seem real around us. Coming and going to the mythical mountaintop is a skill both necessary and wonderful for modern man/woman.
So today, this morning, I make my bags ready and head off to classes, and I will spend this sunny afternoon in the Library, because the dense world around me needs my attention too, and because the lotus flower blooms in the ditches beside the road.... I am happy that spring is here!
This path of studying the whirling dervishes is leading me to a soft, open heart and a new body, a new dance. In seeking out information for my thesis I am lead into the richness of Sufi experience, into the excitement of the Sufi community in London, into a place where all my skills must flip their polarity and come out with new sweetness. It is an open path, the Sufi path, and many say that it pre-dates religion; one does not necessarily need to be Moslem, and they are welcome to situate themselves in the realm of truth most real for them. While the whirling is the center of my study, many sufis chant, dance, play drums and flutes, recite poetry and engage in a wide variety of creative processes. It is lovely for me to be a part of, and I am letting go of the dancer I was so that the dance can come shining to me, from the inside.
In contrast to some of my colleagues, who are not so much transformed by the work they study as interested in it, I remember that I made a huge point in my entry essay (for this degree program) that I desire to lead an integrated life. For me, that means work, play, spirit, and family all interweave and connect. It is really the only way to bring the sage off the mountaintop and put her in the central place in both her own life and her family's.
In Love,
Hello Dears! This poem was given to me years ago when I was going through a rough time with Kevin. It made such a difference in my approach,and remembering that, I have been looking for it for some months. I am absolutely delighted to find it today, and now I joyously share it with you.
This being human is a guest-house
Every morning a new arrival
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Rumi The Guest House
Translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
Much Love,
So today I re-shaved my head, and I love it even more. When I touch my head the heat of my hands presses into my skin and I have never felt that before. It is cool! And as for my head being cold, another comment I get regularly, well, I have to wear a hat anyway, so there's no difference in my position to old jack frost at all.
Articulating just what is so different here, where so much is actually similar, is befuddling at times. The concept that returns over and over since the first days however, is that of mud. It feels like slogging through the mud. My body is made up of crystals and clay, water sluicing through it and through my everyday, a primordial sense of dragons and of myth, and yet the people are hard in spite of it. Their oppression is like centuries old! It is possible they even feel buried. And yet glimmers of those crystals, those skeletons from the past, are abundantly apparent.
It is as if the sense of being clay is natural to the English, and for them to come to America, where we are all so airy and wonderfully cheery and lightheartedly disconnected, and in my mind so much nicer to be around..it is as if that is completely ungrounded. And for me, this sensation of slogging, it is just being down to earth and normal.
Cup o' tea anyone?
from the English village
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