My Dearest Ones,
I am not sure how I want to begin this blog, there is so much I want to say and I am not sure if anyone will really understand me at all. I am very tired this morning but I can not seem to sleep because I have a lot of thoughts within my mind that wants to spill out in a tumbling mass of words. Although it is very seldom that I feel the need to say a lot on a range of topics at once,
today is one of those times.
A friend of mine David Nahmod, alerted me to a tragedy that happened recently in California. Two elderly gentlemen who were gay and a couple for many years were placed into two different nursing homes, their home that they had for many years was sold at a auction,Neither lifemate was able to see the other and one of them passed away. The Survivng spouse or Lifemate did not have a home to return to,anything of his lifemate,and was treated very badly.
I find this to be a very disturbing story but one that does occur often in the social services and health care fields. You would think that at least in liberal open minded places in California such things would not happen as they do like elsewhwere in the USA. I think the American culture in general
seems to be at odds within itself. A tug of war has existed,
but not exactly by the Religious Right, but tradition and social cultural changes.
An example of what I mean is like an eipsode of EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND in which the twin boys were to be male fairies in a school play and the Grandfather objected to it because it would mean that the boys would have to wear wings and tieghts. He told Raymond to get the boys into baseball or some kind of sport because they would be "pansies" and "sissies" if they didn't.
Raymond and Deborah thought otherwise,but the grandfather was insistent. In fact, it was revealed in that eipsode that Raymond as a boy was made to drop his piano lessons because the grandfather felt it would make him out to be a sissy...
Where do such balant lies and myths such as that begin? Where is it written that someone who is in uniform turned traitor to his country or his buddies because he was gay? Nowhere that I know of, yet this prejudice still exists. I don't get it.
I don't understand why people think this way. Remember Ronald Reagan's son? He was made to give up his career as a male dancer because it was considered to be unmannish of a career choice for
a son of a President. Lots of family pressure had to be laid on him for him to do as his Father wanted,I think.
This is supposed to be the year 2010 in a very progressive age,
but I am starting to believe, for every two steps forward, we take six or seven steps back.
Whenever I have to be in my scooter or in a wheelchair,I sometimes see people look away,children looking curiously and often asking "What happend to you?" while their mothers embarressed apologize as if the child had done something terribly wrong. I have no problem about answering the child directly and honestly, but I sometimes have a problem with adults that appologize to me over my being Physically challenged.
It is a problem of life,such as it is, but they often can't deal with it because it has only been in recent years that the Physically Challenged are seen and heard in public life.
A friend of mine and I were discussing this recently and he expressed the worry that the Health Care system might yet try to get us all into assisted living or nursing homes again because of the high cost of medical care and living life. I do not know if it will ever come down to that,but I know I am scared of going into assisted living. I have been repeatedly told by well meaning friends that assisted living is not like nursing homes,and that I would have freedom to come and go as I pleased,but I have seen a few of these places in the past and I did not like what I saw.
Too much like Sunland for my tatse. Sunland was a place where many of my classmates and friends who had Cerebral Palsy ended up
as children because their parents gave them away to the State of Florida. The conditions there were so horrible that Geraldo Rivera did a expose on Sunland for his show years later.
It really sealed a negative image within my mind of nursing homes and "rest homes" as Sunland was called back then.
I did work as a Volunteer Candy stripper and Nurse Aide at a few nursing homes as young girl and young adult female, but I never got paid for it since I was Disabled. I became quite burned out
because you had a lot of problems that should have been addressed but were not. I swore to myself then that I would never get myself trapped in such a place ever...Now,my friends are trying to convince me to go into one so it would make life easier and I would get Medicaid back if I did so. Medicaid to pay my co pays and things that I need that Medicare does not pay.
There is no assurance that I would get Medicaid back anyway even though My SSI is less than what the top pay out is.
I don't understand the system either. That is something that I long to grasp and find a way to get around the barriers imposed on me, but I doubt I ever will.
Yours,
Heidi
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