Honor, Loyalty and other Nonsense

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary the term “Honor” means: “… a: a keen sense of ethical conduct : integrity <wouldn’t do it as a matter of honor> b : one’s word given as a guarantee of performance <on my honor, I will be there>.”

I take this to mean that one has a strong sense of personal values which they live by, not subject to much interpretation or change. My sometimes unrealistic and idealist view is that most people live by a personal code of honor. I am commonly proven wrong at the most amazing acts by people I thought I knew well in this way.  Life is rockin right along and then someone pulls a stunt or an act that makes me really surprised at the lack of their personal honor and I wonder if they even know it, or think of it in this way.

I’ll give an example: A man married for 15 years with children, a home, job and basically living the American dream suddenly decides one day, quite out of the blue to leave his wife, kids and home for another woman. Now, I know one must honor themselves, but what Universal law governs the loss of honor to the original commitment to wife and kids? Where does that go? Is it really justified by “honoring” oneself to follow your ‘heart’ all willy-nilly, jumping from life to life, leaving behind destruction, devastation and heart-break?

I say a resounding NO WAY! The cowards way is any way that does not honor vows, promises and other forms of binding agreements, written or otherwise. Of course I’m always guilty of staying in situations way beyond my welcome in an attempt to honor the vow, promise or agreement I made, to my own detriment. So, am I honoring myself by doing this?  I don’t know.

It was not always so. Used to be, and at one time, I made the same self-serving and selfish decisions I see others making and I used the same shallow excuses for my behavior. But I really got tired of being let down by those who had no honor in their lives and realized that I had none, either. So, I set out to change that. And it is a hard and long road to attempt to change such a seemingly unattainable goal. But I really like the word itself and this drove me on in my quest. I work at it every day and realize this goal will always be a work in progress.

Am I allowed to change my mind once I’ve made a promise?  Of course. The disclaimer to this is that there is actually a good way to make a mind change…honesty. If at any time I feel I’ve made a mistake or made a promise or vow in haste and need to backtrack, honesty to myself first, then honesty to the people or person to whom I made the original promise. If I try to hide the fact that I have doubts, the other will know it on some level and those feelings can begin to cause mistrust, doubt and I will have, at that point, stopped honoring myself along with the other(s) involved. There is also a timeframe and manner in which to make such changes to promises, in order to save the others involved as much heartache, trouble, inconvenience, etc. In other words…making a life-altering change for yourself and others, there must be substantial time to make necessary adjustments and planning for said change.

I look around and see very little honor.  The real kind of honor that isn’t just lip service and ‘show.’  I don’t want to have to expend the extra energy it takes to make up empty excuses for my bad behavior or poor judgment.  I’d much rather have honor and live in honor. When I honor myself, I honor those around me. Cowardice is easy…too easy for my taste.

Now loyalty is defined (by the same reference source) as: “Unswerving in allegiance: as a : faithful in allegiance to one’s lawful sovereign or government b : faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due c : faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product.”

This term has become almost non-existent these days, in my opinion. I can count on one hand the people I know who actually know what loyalty means and actually practices it as a part of who they are. This is so disappointing.

An example: 3 friends: friend 1 has a disagreement with friend 2 and friend 3 takes a neutral stance in the issue between the other 2. Now this is a touchy situation. However, if the issue is serious enough, friend 3 remaining neutral is actually practicing disloyalty. Playing the part of Switzerland, if you will. This is dangerous and hurtful for all involved, but in my opinion, one must choose a ‘side’ to support. Otherwise, where is the honor? Can a person really be loyal to 2 people of opposite ends of an issue? Does friend 3 honor both other friends by not taking sides, despite the fact that friend 3 has a very strong opinion in the issue at hand?

I know this is confusing, but I want to revisit a couple of things from a previous post. Family (blood or chosen) is always the side one should take, again in my opinion. We don’t get to choose most of our family members but that doesn’t give anyone the right to alienate a family member because of a disagreement.  You can say you don’t agree, but outright being disloyal is a travesty, to me.

Chosen family: once you make a choice to call someone ‘family’ and accept the person(s) into your family, that’s it, done deal. You must accept the person for who they are, good, bad or otherwise…and stand by that person, no matter what. That’s loyalty. And being a loyal person, you have honor.

It’s just crushing to see a lack of these qualities in people. I don’t get it. Have we really strayed so far from our values that people are expendable, as the mood or circumstance changes? Do we, as a society promote the lack of honor and loyalty? Is this what I’m seeing? It almost seems as though these are just words of nonsense that casually get thrown around in an effort to make one ‘look’ better or feel better about themselves. Provided, anyone even really thinks of these terms as meaningful values anymore.

I want to. I have always had a tendency to choose sides, if you will. If I am pushed to make a choice or take a side, I do it based on what I believe to be my truth. And, I attempt to do this with as much honesty as possible. Not perfection, like I said it’s always going to be a work in progress. But a work that defines me.

In the past few months I have seen friendships torn apart, marriages ended and families divided. And, being close to these situations I saw horrific lack of honor and loyalty. Achieving these qualities takes work…hard work. But only those things we work hard for are worth anything in this life. Right? Am I way off course here? Does anyone care to have honor and loyalty associated with their own value system anymore? Or is it nonsense now and considered too old-fashioned and out-dated to be loyal to a friend and honor ones family?

Up on my high horse, I am always humbled when I see honor and true loyalty in action, but it rarely happens anymore. As a side note: When I do express my own loyalty and honor to myself, beliefs, friends and family I usually get in to trouble or at least lose a friend or 2. Why is this? I stand by what I believe, why is that so hard for people to understand? Is it frightening in some way?  Do I offend others by standing strong and not giving in to what someone else wants me to do, think or say?

I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this: I want to continue to back my beliefs, my friends and my family at any cost and live in honor and loyalty.

Then again, you really have to know yourself in order to know what you are loyal to and what/how you honor.

Maybe there are just a whole lot of people who don’t know themselves well enough to make those choices.

To be continued…

Dirty Little Secret: The Uninsured Sick

No pulling cards today or jumping on a soapbox about my deadbeat ex.  Today I’m angry at the system. Now, I don’t know much about politics and don’t care to get too far involved so as to further raise my already high blood pressure. Why do I have high blood pressure you ask?  I’m so glad you asked!  I have Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). Never heard of it? Neither had I until I was diagnosed almost 17 years go by the Baylor Nephrology Department in Dallas, TX.  And by that, I mean the ENTIRE team of Nephrologists at the Baylor Health System stood in an exam room trying to convince me (with x-rays, CAT scans and IVP results in hand) that I had this disease. I was in such shock and denial that I went home and decided that they were all wrong and had made a huge mistake. Kidney disease, are you serious? Get real…

At the age of 22 I passed my first kidney stone and that same year was told I had high blood pressure. I spent the better part of a year going through every possible test to find the source of the pressure in my blood when I was finally referred over to Baylor by my Primary Doc. Another battery of tests and viola! The source: swelling kidneys due to seedling cysts on both filtering organs. Doc’s said my kidney function was fine, the disease was genetic and there were no treatments or cures…just go home, take your blood pressure meds and live your life.

So I did. For 12 years, during which I passed another 6 stones, at least.

Then the bottom dropped out. One day out of nowhere, I began to have a feeling of dread, then pain in my lower abdomen, then doubled over and couldn’t get back up. I was taken to the Baylor Emergency room where I was told that a cluster of cysts had ruptured in my left kidney.  WHAT!  You never told me they could do that!  And further, you certainly left out the part where there would be excruciating pain! I was in the hospital for 7 days while on a morphine drip to ease the pain. No other treatments or meds or cures, just pain management. WHAT! There’s NOTHING else that can be done? Are you kidding me? You guys can cure cancer and you can’t make my kidneys stop doing this?

Anyway, back to my original issue. Here it is several years later and I now live in daily pain from a chronic illness that has no cure, no treatment and will cause my kidneys to fail within the next couple of years. Did I ask for this? Hell’s No. Are you serious?  Who would ask for this shit? I’m no beauty queen but for several years my dance card was full, people. I can’t be diseased!  LOL!

The much bigger issue is that I have recently lost my insurance. If you don’t know how this story goes I’m here to tell you:

After the deadbeat, bastard husband left, I was to move back home to TX to a small town with family to collect myself, which at that point had completely shattered. Did my disease go away during this process…of course not. So off I went to try to find a health clinic or hospital or Doctor who could see a chronic patient with no insurance.  Anyone care to take a guess at what I have found?

Not even the county health department could treat me. Why, you ask? I’ll tell you: the ONE Doc that the Gregg County  (where I live now…in HELL) Health Department  has, does not believe in pain management for the chronically ill.

I’ll say that again for the cheap seats in the back…THE ONE DOC IN THE GREGG COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN PAIN MANAGEMENT FOR THE CHRONICALLY ILL.

You see, I haven’t the time or energy to go in to all the legalities of pain management, that’s another story altogether. But I will say this: nearly 5 years ago my good Doctors at Baylor and I noticed that I was having more frequent ruptures of cysts, the cysts were getting larger and larger and I was living in pain, every day. The natural course was to recommend me to their Pain Management Department. I went through another battery of tests, tried every alternative therapy, signed consent and release forms and was required to attend regular Psych evals to make sure I didn’t become a drug addict, due to the fact that the ONLY treatment that would work on intractable pain, was opiod therapy.  I’ll say it again: The only treatment for intractable pain is opiod therapy. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Intractable pain is more commonly known in the medical profession as “organic” pain, or pain that no other meds can get to. Tylenol, Advil, Motrin, Aleve and the like, don’t work on that kind of pain. The source of the pain is actually inside and around the organ itself. It’s not nerve pain like other illnesses. And, it’s not like headache, joint and muscle pain. It is ORGAN pain, typically from swelling of the organ due to growing cysts or infection from passing stones, or both. Either way it’s a lose/lose proposition with this disease. Most kidney disease patients need a transplant by the age of 40…I’m 39, and very fortunate that I still have kidney function. My father had it and died at the age of 42.

I spent nearly a year with the Baylor Pain Management System trying to get the meds and dosages right. They were understanding and worked with me very closely to help manage my pain so that I could live a normal life. After all, I worked full time, had kids to raise and did a lot of volunteer work. I couldn’t just miss a few days while my kidneys did their thing. I wanted to live. And live I did for the next 4 years. While I had insurance. I even spent a year in Jacksonville, FL with the Mayo Clinic, who also monitored my disease and pain management, again telling me there was nothing else they could do but ease the pain so’s I could live a more normal life.

Here’s where it gets really good. Now that I have no insurance, I am the uninsured sick. Our great country’s dirty little secret. All the hoopla going on about the health care bill this and the health care bill that, is really for the INSURED. Since losing my job and insurance and moving back to TX I have seen 5 Doc’s and they all say the same thing: We can see you for your disease, but we don’t treat pain. And, you will have to pay cash (anywhere from $150 to $300 per visit). And my regimen of meds costing anywhere from $500 to $800 per month makes visits to a Doc quite a joke. A very painful one.

I have been referred to 5 clinics who are supposed to help the uninsured. And they do, so long as you only need a shot or you have a cold. Maybe you have diabetes or a heart condition and need a refill on your heart pill. But if you need anything more than that you are SHIT OUT OF LUCK.  A nurse actually compared her diabetes to my kidney disease.  Lady, diabetes can be controlled…kidney disease can’t.  ARE YOU SERIOUS?

I became so frustrated that I actually asked one Doc if he could just remove the offending kidneys and replace them with good ones so I can go on living a semi-normal life. I figured if he couldn’t help me in any other way, that must be the solution.  He grinned and walked out of the room.

Now, I have some confidence that I will again have health insurance someday. I’m not one to sit around and die a slow and painful death by kidney disease. But I tell you this: I would pay DOUBLE my own health premiums if it meant that not another person has to go through what I have been through over the past month.

I had made a Myspace post several months ago about the legalities of pain management in this country. I’d love to rehash it here, but that’s for another time. I’ll leave you with this: If you were told you had an incurable disease that would cause you crippling pain on a daily basis, there was no cure for it, no treatment for it other than opioid pain management therapy…what would you do? What if it was your child? Your mother, father, sister or brother? What if it was your best friend?

Does any of this make a difference in how you view the political BS of the new health care bill going on in Washington?  It should…  Why? What would you do if you lost your job and health coverage for your family and someone became seriously ill or was already being treated for a serious illness? Where would you go?

Companies are still laying off, our economy isn’t bouncing back as fast as first thought and there are thousands and thousands of people in my same predicament. You could be next!

And, one last thought (my opinion): Our health care system is set up to keep people ill, not cure them. Go ahead and compare our system to other countries..even underdeveloped countries and third-world countries. They at least attempt to heal their sick and use preventative care on a scale that we may never see.

Diabetes? Get real… You awful, sonofabitch health care worker. You should be so lucky to only get kidney disease and lose your job and insurance, after the nasty karma coming your way, my dear!

The ire I have spread on this post and thrust at you also comes from the fact that I have a semi-friend who has a chronic pain illness. And she had to resort to street drugs when she lost her job and insurance BECAUSE of her disease. The doctor visits were too expensive and again, no one will treat chronic illness with pain management, on a sliding scale or at a discount, when there is no insurance.  This is a travesty. It is humiliating, degrading and can have dire consequences.

<Gwen jumping down from the soap box>