For my Mom.....

Tomorrow my mother would have been 61 years old. Every year near her birthday, I like to commit something to writing to her.

I'm not sure if it weighs on me acutely this year because of the general mood of things right now; things are up in the air at work; school is looming before me--and the question of clinicals--and I wish that it would hurry up and start, because not only does tomorrow mark her birthday, but it marks the beginning of the whole lousy spring of the year she died.

Mom was diagnosed with Stage IIIC endometrial cancer in mid-March. A mere six weeks later, on May 6, she was gone. And while the warmth and the flowers of spring remind me of rebirth and the fact that life can and does and has gone on--it sometimes doesn't make spring any easier. It seems to be going around; I talked to my baby cousin yesterday, and Amanda is very much at a cross-roads right now, too. It's a helpless feeling not being able to go to her right now; and not being able to know what to tell her. Her problems are greater than mine in the grand scheme of things, I realize......and all either of us can do is what we used to say when I was in the Air Force: "Hurry up and wait." Every other waking moment is bills.....school.....will-I-get-into-clinicals-this-time? The irritation of the work situation is helping not at all. It's driving me a little loopy.

.....just as that spring 14 years (has it really been that long since I've seen my Mom?) ago. The tests. The two surgeries to put shunts in her failing kidneys--both unsuccessful. The helpless knowledge that while we were waiting to get her functioning sufficiently to withstand chemo and radiation--the cancer could be, and was--metastasizing. Growing beyond the control of the doctors and medicine. It was over too quickly.......and not quickly enough, when I think of how she was suffering at the end. The night before she died was the longest night of my life--including the nights I was in labor with my kids; and anyone who has experienced that can tell you: those are some long nights indeed.

My Dad had sent both my sister and I home from the hospital; in spite of the fact that I was 21 and my sister 18, we would always be, to Mom I suppose, her little girls, and it wasn't the place for two little girls. I talked to her on the phone at about midnight as she took a breathing treatment. It was the last time on this Earth I'd ever speak to her, and after the relationship I'd had with her at times, it is still comforting to me, today, that the last words I ever spoke to my mother were, "I love you, Mom." My friend Michelle came and sat with me that night. I have no recollection of where Misty was, or when she got home, for some reason--but I do remember she was there when Dad called the next morning to tell us she was gone. The last thing I remember was it being four in the morning, and I had been working on a cross-stitch pattern--"Children Learn What They Live." I don't remember Michelle leaving--though she must have; she was gone when the call came. I woke up in my parents bed with Misty and Christopher--and it was storming violently when the call came. For a moment I was a little girl--storms always sent us to Mom and Dad's room. I remember the intensity of that storm, and I remember Misty's voice, and she was crying, "Daddy, tell her I love her......" she hung up the phone and told me, "She was already gone......" Christopher was awake now and looking between me and his aunt, only two years old and not accustomed to seeing "Aunt Tee" cry. I remember picking him up and carrying him to the kitchen, and the T.V. still on in the living room; the National Weather Service was warning that Campbell County was under a tornado warning. I was marvelling at the fact that I could never, ever, remember LaFollette having a tornado warning. And being in disbelief--Mom couldn't be gone. Not Mom. She didn't give up.....something that both impressed and infuriated me at times.

I didn't believe it until Dad and Aunt Mae pulled into the driveway, and I ran to the door. And the look on my Dad's face was all it took. My father, 6'2", had always, always looked huge and imposing to me, both as a little girl and as a grown woman. While he's still my hero--he's never again looked like the giant I always thought him to be. Devastation was written there, in his face, and almost appeared to have shrunk. I walked into the back hallway and cried furiously for about a minute and a half......and it was all I would cry for the next several weeks about it. I did not cry at her viewing.....her funeral....... And I didn't cry nearly as much for myself as I did for my Dad, who was clearly beside himself....or for my sister, now sobbing in my Dad and my Aunt's arms; Misty was completely lost. I dried my eyes, and I remember walking into the living room and picking that cross-stitching up off the couch. I folded it and put it in a bag......the bag from Oak Ridge Methodist Medical Center--from the day they ran the tests that would confirm the diagnosis. Mom had joked I had been working on that thing forever and would never finish it......I can remember working furiously on it the night before she died. I wanted to show it to her--before, and if, she died. I sometimes think now that I worked so hard on it that night thinking that if only I finished it........? What might have been? Of course my logical mind knows that nothing different would have happened. But....that cross stitch remains in that bag. It's never been taken out again, unfinished. While I sometimes think to myself if I took it out and finished it, maybe I could put my dread of spring behind me--again I know, it wouldn't be that way. Spring is forever bittersweet for me. And besides--not finishing it is my way of letting Mom have the last word in this one; God knows I never wanted to let her have it when she was alive.

I also remembered a conversation I'd had with her around Christmas: I had been working on that cross stitch and she had said, hearing the sleet on the roof, "I've never wanted to die in the winter." Something went cold in me when I heard it--and I realize now that I should have known then, at that moment--something was very wrong. I looked up at her, and she was actually tearing up. "Something about being put in the cold ground....." I remember that my heart was pounding. And, not knowing what to say, so shocked was I at this version of my Mom--had stammered out NOT, "You're not going to die, Mom......" or "Don't be silly," had said, "Well, uh, you know.....Mom, it's just your body......"

If I could turn back time and go back to that, I would have said something else, and again I have that thought, "If only I had said something different....." Now, I know nothing would be different, it's just the way I think sometimes. My answer had caused Mom to brush away a tear and smile quickly--"Oh, I know." God answered her prayers the day she was laid to rest; it was burning hot, and only the first week of May. I was never and haven't since--been that happy to be outside in that sort of heat.

Mom and I had some fights that the world's greatest generals are glad they missed. She was 5'1" and I was taller than her from the time I was eleven years old, but I was scared of that woman like a virgin on prom night. Bigger than her for as many years as I was smaller than her.....but she whipped my ass more times than I would care to tell you about, AFTER I was bigger than her, thankyouverymuch--and still could, because I know enough to know I would throw up the white flag the second she started in. And I say that with a smile.

There were days we could have killed each other. And tried......she had the advantage here, because I would never lay a finger on my Mom, although she laid hers on me!! (Again, smiling--laughing just a little.) Probably the sorriest moment of my life was one day when we were baring our fangs at each other and she had lit into me like flies on shit. Mom had said she would die and go to Hell before........and I had piped up and said, "Oh, yeah? You'd be in good company there!!" and the second it was out of my mouth, I was wishing the bomb would drop, because it would have been far less painful.......We could both laugh about it later after I was grown and gone, but at the time it happened, Dad and Misty stood poised to stop us from doing anything we might go to the pokey for.

And I admit, after I left home, I did things for pure shock value to Mom. I went to Mexico for a vacation. I dyed my hair (slutty, to her Pentecostal upbringing, and although she finally gave up that particular point as a lost cause, she could never stop herself from shaking her head at my new haircolor.) She would call me when it was two in the afternoon, demanding to know why I was still in bed.......and I would all too gleefully tell her it was because any movement made the room spin--and the ringing of the phone sounded like firecrackers in my ears; late night......"Don't YELL, Mom....." The time she came to see me and all I had in the place I shared with my roomies was Twinkies, Mountain Dew, cigarettes, coffee, and a half a bottle of vodka. She'd take me shopping for clothes when I was home....she hated mine, and although she hated the ones I picked out, she bought them anyway. ("That makes you look taller and scrawnier than you already are!!") She threw away every Aerosmith tape I ever had when I was a teenager--and for my twentieth birthday? She bought me Aerosmith tickets.....

Not long after survival school I was home, and she had been horrified at my appearance when she saw me...."You look like you're starving to death...." I had been ready to pack my bags and go back to Texas; we had bickered and bickered--wow!! The argument we had that stands out the most bears remembering here, because it's funny now: My mother had picked up my dog tags, where I had taken them off and laid them down. If you've never read dog tags, the following is engraved on them: Your name, Social Security Number, Blood Type, Religion and your branch of service. Mom looked at mine--and here is a classic Dora Elizabeth and Cheri Lynn Morgan exchange:

"Protestant?!" (Mom. And it didn't come out PRA-testant, as you would give the word the infliction when you're referring to religion; it came out Protest-Ant. This is important.)

"Yeah......" shrug of my shoulders, total nonchalance. I had thought nothing of it. "It's what I am...."

"You are not!!" She was really heated, and at the time, I was absolutely befuddled as to why. From the ensuing rant, I gleaned that my mother thought 'Protestant' was a euphemism for 'atheist'. And I remember saying to her--in a perfect example of why she found me absolutely infuriating......."MO--OO-OOM......I am not Catholic. I don't need a priest, Extreme Unction, or Last Rites!! I'm not Jewish, so I don't need a rabbi, or someone to say kaddish!! I'm not Muslim--so it's okay to embalm me and chunk me in a fridge for more than 24 hours before they bury me; I'm not a Jehovah's Witness--of course, if I WAS, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because I'd never have joined anyway--but just the same, they can give me a blood transfusion!! This is so they know what to do with me when they find me incapacitated or DEAD!!!"

"They're going to pray that you don't split Hell wide open!!"

NOW I understood. I had had enough arguments with Mom to realize--she didn't recognize this word 'Protestant'. "Mom.......it just means I am not a part of a faith that I am baptized, bar-mitzvahed, bat-mitzvahed, or, thank God, circumsized into, and,"--and here I said the wrong thing, "You're a Protestant, too!!" (I'm a Protestant, you're a Protestant.....would ya like to be a Protestant, too?!?!--she wasn't amused......)

Off to the races....."Your father's dog tags say 'Southern Baptist'!!" (And indeed they did.) "Well, I'm sorry--I was a little sobered at thinking about what they would think, looking at my dog tags when I am DEAD--they're not going to give a shit about whether or not I'm a Baptist--they only want to know what to do with my body!! 'Protestant' seemed sufficient!!" It went on for a bit longer before I finally, beleaguered, said, "Oh, for God's sake--I didn't come up with it. And I'll punch Martin Luther in the face for this when I get to Heaven--MOM!! The Roman Catholic Church thought up 'protestant'!!! HUNDREDS of years before you or I were ever born.....blame the Pope!!!! I promise--when they see that on my dog tags, they're not going to think I was the demon spawn of Madeleine Murray O'Hara......they're going to know I was God-fearing enough to know what PROTESTANT means!!!"

That woman NEVER looked at my dog tags again without her eyes squinting in suspicion. I still carry one of them on my car keys, and I laugh every time I think about it.

......and I had gone to bed, and drifted off into a fitful sleep.....

.....and woke up with a start, ready to start swinging at whatever woke me up--survival school in all the interesting ways they devise for sleep deprivation will do that to you--only to find that it was Mom who woke me up......

She had come in to my room to put another blanket on me, and was tucking the covers up under my chin--which was what woke me. She had jumped back when I sprang up, and said, "It's me!! It's Mommy....." I was eighteen years old. And heard not, "It's just me!!" But--"It's Mommy." She hadn't referred to herself as 'Mommy' since I was about six. And when I laid back down, she pulled up the covers.......and, in something else uncharacteristic of Mom, leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, and I could swear she let her lips stay there for a second, as if checking me for a fever.

It never occured to me when I was growing up--in spite of the fact she had cancer when I was only four--that she would go before Dad. Honestly, I thought that woman would be standing over ME (and I just might have gone at her hands.....) I had an unreasonable fear, after my Uncle Gene died at 46, that I would lose Daddy when he was that age. He had a heart attack at 44, and I was batshit with fear. Ironically--it was Dad who was 46 when Mom died; Mom herself had just turned 47. One of those little plot twists that sneaks up and surprises you in a way you never expect.

I have little reminders of Mom.....sometimes I see her in my own face. I see her in Cate--my youngest daughter is stubborn as her Me-Mom, and some of the expressions she gets sometimes are Dora Morgan made over. And Cate's got her temper!! Although Caroline has grown to be more like Bill than me, when she was born, the doctor held her up for me to see......and the line in my mother's forehead that would stick out when she was going to cry, or when she was angry--was etched in my newborn daughter's face. I had been a little stuck on a middle name for Caroline, and after that--Caroline Elizabeth Greenway she became; Dora Elizabeth Morgan's namesake. Misty looks shockingly like our mother........she looks like the Mom we had when she was young--before the cancer and the worry and everything else got her. Misty is beautiful like my Mom when she was young--because my mother was as beautiful a woman as anyone has ever seen when we were small. She has Mom's easy grin and her green eyes. She's little like Mom.........but she is Chuck Morgan's daughter. Gives not a shit about anything. She's not bad tempered like Mom (I AM!!)--I think I understand it more now; Misty was Mom's girl probably because.......well, Misty is like Dad, and after all--Mom loved Dad enough to marry him.

And while I don't look like her, and while I have dispensed with most of Mom's terrible temper--I am Dora Morgan's daughter. I think sometimes now that Mom didn't like herself very much, and I don't understand why, because when she wasn't in the death grips of one of her moods, Mom was a great person. She was pretty and funny, and she had a great heart. I think Mom sometimes saw the things in me that she liked in herself the least, and she tried--sometimes literally--to knock that out of me. When I was a teenager in particular, I was quiet, moody, and more inclined to be interested in what Mom considered 'dark'. A bookworm and a loner for the most part, it's easy to see why Mom didn't 'get' me sometimes, looking back. Mom became a believer in the saying, "It's the quiet ones you've got to watch," and I was the reason for that. I turned out to be the only Hell my Momma ever raised......sometimes I'm proud of that, sometimes not.

God has granted me life reminders--in 2001, my cousin Bonnie gave birth to her daughter on what would have been Mom's 52nd birthday. And Mom got another namesake that day--Carsyn Elizabeth Denney was born on February 26, 2001; and the very next day, on Bill's mother's birthday came my youngest child. I think that was God's way of making the month of February more bearable.......I know He was smiling twice as hard at our family that week.

On May 8th, 2004, I stood at the same cemetery where we had laid my mother to rest eight years before, to the day..........to lay her oldest brother to rest. Mom's mother had passed only weeks before. And while some might think that particularly cruel......I like to think that God would have it so that I don't have another painful reminder: My uncle died May 5th, 2001. Mom died on the 6th......the first week of May hurts very badly--and while it never goes completely away, it is eased away with the coming of summer.

I find myself thinking more of the good these days. I think more about times like.........when we used to go pick up Daddy from work--when I couldn't have been more than three, and I thought ALL the sailors were Daddy ("There's Daddy!!" at every single one I saw.......and Mom and I would sing, "Daddy, oh Daddy, where are you?!")......and Daddy would somehow manage to sneak around my watchful eyes and pop up in the back window and yell, "I GOTCHA!!!" And Mom and I would would scream, "DADDDDDY!!!!"

I keep my favorite picture of us near my desk.....one of me in a little white dress with navy blue polka-dots, sitting in her lap and beaming like the little ham I was at two years old--and her smiling a little wryly--either at the fact (as she said) that she wasn't exactly dressed for a picture or at the little turd she's holding.

I think about the last time we were stationed in Memphis--Chinese food every Friday night. I think about when she used to work third shift and would grin at us on her way out the door and say, "Oh, boy!! Full moon tonight......"

.....or the time we were on our way to Ohio, and, "Don't get off here!! THIS IS EXIT 69!!"--roared laughing and smacked me playfully on the arm after I spit Pepsi all over the steering wheel AND the windshield and yelled, "MOTHER!!" when I realized in horror that--yes, my mother was full of sexual innuendo when she said it--and more horrified still that she knew what a 69 even was.....and she said, "Well!! I graduated in 1968--and we used to say, 'At least we're not graduating in '69!!!!!" She laughed the rest of the way to Dayton.

....her howling laughing at me when my Mamaw Morgan, when Bill and I began to discuss marriage and the possibility of having more children later told me--"Girl, you'd best tell him when he gets to acting like that to find a slab of meat or a hole in the fence....." and I said, "Mamaw!!!" Mom laughed till she cried and all I could do was sputter. "She's speechless!!" I don't know what Mom thought was more funny--what Mamaw said, or the fact that her oldest daughter was speechless.

Or when I was in labor with Christopher. My pulse went up over 200--and I don't remember squat about it except ALOT of doctors, Mom telling one of them she wasn't leaving, and the last thing I remember about it was.....looking under one of the doctor's arms, and seeing Mom. Her eyes were squeezed tight, her hands were tightly folded under her chin, and her lips were moving in prayer......and I know I saw a tear. Her laughter when, in the delivery room, the first contraction in there brought "PUSH!!" out of all the doctors, nurses and Mom.......and Mom added, "Chin to your chest, honey!!" and I said--and the only reason I got away with it was I was in labor; 21 hours into labor and EXHAUSTED--said: "Mom, shut up and get the f--- away from me......"and she cried from laughing. The second he was born and they held him up, she said, "Oh, my poor baby--that kid weighs ten pounds if he weighs an ounce......." and then she squealed, "Ohhhhhh......HE'S GOT RED HAIR!!!!" while trying to give me a squeeze--which I was struggling to stay out of....."Go with the baby, Mom!!! Don't let them lose him!!"

So.....in closing: I once heard the expression "Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay--it's not the end." I hope Mom went knowing that everything was okay......or at least in the process of being okay. We are.....

Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you and I miss you.

"Where is the light that I recognized.....gone away.....
...But I won't cry for yesterday; there's an ordinary world somehow I had to find."

A Public Service Announcement.....

After a white-knuckled drive home......

Winter weather in the South is a mixed blessing. It's cool because we never get it.

And it sucks because you have to share the road with Southern drivers........who don't even know how to drive in the rain. 'Snowmageddon'? You got that right. I cannot be categorized as a Southerner--even though my whole family is Southern and I was born in the southernmost city in the United States; and even though I have lived my whole life South of the Mason-Dixon line.

I am not a Southerner because I know how to drive in rain, sleet, snow and ice. I live in the only city in which I have seen a plow truck have an accident. Not kidding here.

Dear Southerners, In rain, sleet, snow and ice I have watched your driving dip-shittery for lo, these last 35 years......and I have a few things to tell you:

Four wheel drive on icy roads does NOT give you superpowers. It means you're doing the luge, and didn't an Olympic athlete just die doing that? And if you're stupid enough to think four wheel drive will save your ass in those road conditions, I am quite sure I don't want to share the road with you.

So....here is some advice:

--Maintain a speed that will give you time to react, should you hit ice. That doesn't mean that you should simply drop down to the posted speed limit. Lower........

--If you see an icy patch you will not be able to avoid, let up off the accelerator, and downshift.

--Your tires are your friend. Stay in tune with them.......listen to them. Any deviation in how they sound........any shift in the direction of your vehicle when you haven't turned the wheel--you have hit ice.......

--Now that you have hit it--stay calm. Resist the urge to slam on the brakes. DON'T DO IT. Downshift! Resist the urge to jerk the wheel. If you cannot resist the urge to jerk the wheel--please swerve opposite the direction of traffic. You are more likely to survive a rollover than a head on collision. No sudden moves here.......this is where maintaining a speed that gives you reaction time is going to help......

--If you find yourself in a full spin: If you have front wheel drive, turn INTO the spin. If you have rear wheel drive, turn the wheel in the direction you want your vehicle to go. If you have four wheel drive, bend over and kiss your ass bye-bye; I will do my level best to maneuver out of your way. If you are not sure, stay off the damn road.

Get this concept in your head, people: you are, in winter weather, behind the wheel of something that weighs several tons AND YOU HAVE NO BRAKES. Until you can remember that--stay off the damn road.

And a big thanks alot to Georgia DOT--my tax dollars went for that half-assed plow/sand job you did on I-575, and it ain't makin' it.......

Back to school....

My desk is piled high right now with my nursing application admissions......schedules of classes for summer semester.....

Yesterday I left early for work to stop by school to get the catalogs and applications; my heart beat just a little faster when I walked in the doors--I didn't realize how badly I'd missed it until I was there.

Last fall, due to a changed rule when I was first accepted into college, I got a real blow: I would not be eligible for clinicals as I had not yet taken the Regents Exam. I would not be grandfathered in--no matter the fact I have taken the courses (and passed all with an 'A') that it would take to satisfy a Bachelor's degree.

And now--months later, I am down to sixty days from the deadline to apply for clinicals. I'm trying not to automatically assume I'll get it. I don't want the disappointment again; even though, if I don't get in, in September, I'm sure to get the January matriculation, and it's more time to satisfy requirements for my Bachelor's degree. But......I look over the application, and there is a growing hope: 3.8 GPA, Phi Theta Kappa, SAT scores that are well above the required score to get into the program........and the Regents? I blew it out of the water.

Hope springs eternal.....the desire to get this over and done is tangible. I can touch it, taste it, see it.....

I actually miss the mental strain of studying. I miss the note-taking; I miss the stories, I miss Carey to my left in class. I miss the plastic chairs, the smell of the lab, the acronyms we use to memorize concepts; and I even miss the Kreb's Cycle. That's pretty bad.

I miss using words like 'pathogenicity' and 'necrotizing fasciitis' every day.

Work hasn't helped all this pining for school lately. Just after I stopped at the school the other night, I drove the rest of the way in a daydream about May and my return to classes. Only to have to explain why we can't process a refund on a toilet that is visibly stained with--well, what I study at school. Oh, God, I was wishing for a truly disgusting Microbiology lecture about that time.

Bill is starting to see it, he says-- I watch Dr. G, Trauma: Life in the ER, and Mystery Diagnosis with a religiosity and a--for lack of a better word--hunger. That's the only word that can describe it. And he asks me: What are you going to do when school is done? The answer is simple--go through the 16-month Master's program. And then.......who knows? I have state core curriculum under my belt and LOTS of history credits that I can't transfer to a nursing degree; I'll be about 35 hours from a Master's in history, too.

Nursing three shifts a week, and teaching college history a couple days a week? Don't put it past me.....

Car insurance/health insurance

The victory of Respublican Scott Brown to the late Ted Kennedy's Congressional seat--held in a true 'blue' state for nearly 40 years-- has had me gloating since his election. And with the death of Democratic Senator John Murtha, the 59-41 Democratic majority enjoyed by the Dems falls to 58-41. If the special election to fill his seat also yields another Republican victory, we will send Obama and Co. an even louder message: "No, you can't!!!"

And forgive me for smiling at the headline, "Obama Admits Healthcare Reform May Die On The Hill." Again........"No, you can't."

And already I'm having great golden visions of the November election. I saw a terrific political cartoon in 1994, just after the Democrats took an astounding ass-whipping and dozens of blue states turned red. The cartoon was of Bill Clinton ala The Godfather: he woke up to find the donkey's head in bed with him. I laughed until I cried. (And while I'm on the subject of Clinton, for my readers I will once again clarify why he was impeached by the house of representatives--and, impeachment simply means he was brought up on charges, your civics lesson for the day--Bill Clinton was NOT impeached because he had an extramarital relationship with an aide. He was impeached because he LIED under OATH. You or I would be sent to jail for perjury and probably hindering prosecution and obstruction of justice for that offense. My son informed me the other day he got in trouble because of Monica Lewinsky--and I had to re-educate him. The Greenway Gulag. Reprogramming my children to the straight and narrow after liberal agenda they pick up on.)

I have heard some outcry and backlash (wailing and gnashing of teeth) on Obama and Co.'s failure to make a go at health care reform (health care ruin) in this country. They can't get the majority of us to drink the socialized medicine Kool-Aid, God be praised.

Some of the outcry I have heard--the little of it I HAVE heard--is astounding at best, moronic at worst. When I ask them don't they realize this administration wants to make it illegal to be without healthcare, punishable by a fine of $3000, what I hear is, "Well, it's the law to carry insurance on your car....."

Cars and people--with the rarest exception--are simply NOT the same. No parallel. Sorry.

Of course, I carry car insurance. Some do not. Personally, I don't care if you do or not--because my ass is covered. It's nice if you hit me and you HAVE car insurance, because then YOU have to pay YOUR deductible to have my car fixed and yours, too. If you don't, I may have to pay my deductible, but I get the money to take it to a dealership and not some hole in the wall to get it fixed. And I only have to pay $250 as opposed to ten times that amount--which is usually what the damage ends up being. If you total my car, and I dispute my insurance agent's opinion on the value of the pay-out, I can call in an independent claims adjustor, who will usually rule in my favor--and it doesn't cost me a dime to do it.

If you hit me and you don't have insurance--I have to pay my deductible to have my car fixed--but not yours. Of course, if I hit you and you don't have insurance, I have to pay to have both of our cars fixed--something I'd like to see changed. No insurance--you're left out in the cold.

Right now, those of us who HAVE health insurance are by and large being left out in the cold. For example: in December I began paying for my health insurance. Almost $100/month. I got sick last week. My insurance company still hadn't sent my permanent cards--only a temporary one--and like temporary checks--doctors' offices won't accept temporary cards. It was completely out of pocket. $120. That was before the pharmacy. And I had already paid two months into my policy. $200. So.....they got their insurance money from my check, $120 more at the doctor, and another $50 at the pharmacy. Yeah--I can be reimbursed. But it's going to take 6-8 weeks. That same visit, I saw a woman who spoke not a word of English--and probably never worked a day in her life in this country, and as such, hasn't paid taxes--flop down a Medicaid card and never even took out her wallet. Mad? Just a little.

And get me started on my daughter's hospital stay last year. We pay so much a month into her health insurance. First, the insurance company tried to argue that she didn't have a 'medical emergency' to warrant an ambulance. We didn't call the ambulance--the neurologist who read her lumbar puncture--that was positive for viral meningitis, did. I'm thinking that the 'M.D.' after his name probably makes him an authority as to what is and isn't an emergency--the health insurance company--run by BUSINESSMEN--emphatically is not. When he got the statement, Bill saved it for when I got home. Aetna is now very sorry they have a 24-hour customer care line. Because I called at midnight, and went so far as to ask to speak to a supervisor--who, of course wasn't there at that hour. Having gotten supervisor's number, when I called back the following morning, I quizzed him about his knowledge of meningitis and asked him if a fever of almost 104 and almost constant projectile vomiting in an eight year old sounded like a medical emergency, and did he know that seizures were a symptom of meningitis? "Sound like a medical emergency to YOU, sir??" Aetna is supposed to pay 100% of emergency care. The supervisor relented finally, saying that if a neurologist felt it necessary to call an ambulance for transport....furthermore, I told him, the care that led TO the diagnosis of it--lab fees, lumbar puncture and the 'reading' of the LP--since we were in agreement that meningitis was, in fact, an emergency, we weren't paying a dime of it. So far--we had paid almost $4,000 into our policy. We did end up paying most of the bill at Children's Hospital--for the maintenance care she received--IVs, etc.........but not the antibiotics--she was on a ceftriaxone drip for three days. All told--ambulance ride, ER fees, and the four day stay at Children's came out to nearly $10,000. We had to pay half--and that was AFTER we'd paid our deductible. The ambulance ride and the ER bill I finally convinced the insurance company to write off. The ambulance ride alone from Northside Cherokee to Scottish Rite was almost a thousand. And that totaled Cate's care for the year. Her doctors appointments and medication for the rest of the year was paid out of pocket, because her coverage was maxed out.

In spite of this--I can say that she had GOOD doctors. When we were visited on rounds--I was visited by her attending, interns, residents, med students......there was a nurse in to see about her every half hour--I could set my watch by them. The doctors and nurses at Scottish Rite are an amazing group of people, obviously dedicated to those kids. I was updated regularly about the status of her spinal tap culture--was it growing anything bacterial yet?--and the results of her PCR on the viral meningitis culture. I never had to ask.

That being said.......maybe businessmen aren't the best choice for running healthcare (my choice would be to see doctors and nurses have a say in it)--refer to my bit above about what does and does not constitute an emergency; they're not a very good judge of that--but you don't have to look far to see that the government screws up everything it gets its hands on. Healthcare would be the same.

Unlike car insurance, government run health insurance would mean politicians setting the standard of care. (None of them, to my knowledge, have M.D. after their names.) For the most part, just about every major disease and/or condition--for lack of a better term--has a protocol of treatment. Cancer, diabetes, MS, heart disease, pregnancy, mental illness--everything--has a set treatment, because most people respond well to those treatments.

But--medicine isn't one size fits all. Almost every day, we hear about experimental treatments....medical breakthroughs.....if life is breathed into socialized medicine in this country--kiss all of that good-bye. Because the government (and it's not really the government--it's US, the taxpayers) is not going to spend one penny more of 'their' money on experimental medicine......while by and large experimental treatments work, and work well--the government is not going to hedge its bets on something 'tried and true'. I am a perfect example of medicine not being 'one size fits all'--I hear many people say, "Oh, I took some Bendadryl to go to sleep." If I take Benadryl, I will be up for three days. Narcotic pain killers make me jittery and nervous, and if I sleep at all while taking them, I sleep for maybe two hours. The 'black box' warnings on antidepressants were made with people like me in mind. I can't take them.

Medicine will stagnate with socialized medicine--why will doctors bother to try breakthroughs the government will never use? You will pay your premiums, and you will have what the government says you can have--whether it's working or not. The aforementioned independent claims adjustor, who comes in to settle on your behalf? There isn't one in health insurance--it's only the politicians. With my car insurance--they're going to fix my car, and they're going to fix it after I've paid my deductible--and usually, they don't get one dime more out of me until they do--monthly payments aside. With health care--you're going to go to the doctor you're told to go to. And your going to pay your premiums.......and then you're going to pay out of pocket.......and whether they fix you or not is up in the air. What I mean is--with this kind of care, a person who is diagnosed with say, Phase I cervical cancer--which usually has a good prognosis--is going to waste away and die while waiting on the government to decide when she can again go to the doctor, what doctor she can see, and then be given the one-size-fits-all treatment.

And I should remind: with cars--it IS one size fits all. It either has a dent in the door or it doesn't. The frame is warped, or it isn't. The windshield is busted out or it isn't.

Socialized health care--if you take it apart and look at it piece by piece--is nothing more and nothing less than population control. I also believe--because with socialized medicine, doctors work for the government--it's a means of putting a stop to so many medical malpractice suits. Even if it's proven that another course of treatment--one other than the government, who, through socialized medicine would have mandated--would have saved you or your loved one--you can't sue the federal government.

I don't like the idea of perfect strangers--in this case, greedy politicians--telling me what is good for me. Telling me how my money is best spent, and with what doctor.

So please--no more parallels between mandated health insurance being the same as mandated car insurance. You can't even call it apples and oranges--because even if it was apples and oranges, at least we could say that both are fruits......