Lighter side of things

As some may have noticed.. I’ve been bitchy the last few days.  Not only are we having to deal with the dumb-asses in DC, which hopefully will get the message now that Michael Moore is saying it..

“I and a lot of other people have every intention of removing you from Congress in the next election if you stand in the way of health-care legislation that the people want,” the beefy filmmaker roared. “We will come to your districts, and we will work against you, first in the primary, and if we have to, in the general election. . . . You think we’re going to go along with you just because you’re Democrats? You should think again!”

But I haven’t had food since Friday night at 10pm…. or I should say, I’ve tried to have food but it comes right back up or right back out. I’ve been infected with a plague of some kind and cannot eat,drink or sleep.. While the first day was entertaining and the second day was laughable because I was so hungry I didn’t care that it was just going to come right back up and I ate a grilled chicken sandwich with honey mustard, only to of course pay the price moments after finishing it.(btw trust me when I tell you the price of regurgitated honey mustard is not worth it.. no pleasure is worth that torture.)  But by day 4 and now 5, I’m getting bitchy about it. So let’s make today a lite day..

and where better to start? Than a Hottie and a Naughty..

Thank you JustJared

Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman are a ménage à trois, wet dream, fantasy of mine.. But really Daniel, lose the mustache.. you look like a 70’s porn director.

Thank you JustJared

Heather Locklear is another fantasy of mine.. You’ve still got it darlin’, don’t change a thing.  You will always be much hotter and classier than that skank Denise..LYMI

thank you JustJared

Be still my heart… Oh My!!!

Go Team Edward!

Rumor has it, they’ve got some news to share just in time for Christmas

Thank You JustJared

I don’t care what anyone says… Shia is a hottie..

and finally.. what day would be complete without sweet,sweet Eddie…

Thank you JusJared

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why a non-profit public option is important..

This was brought up on the MucheDumbre forum today in regards to a government involvement in healthcare..

Essentially, that is my problem with all of this. I already have a problem with the FDA and AMA being owned by drug companies, why make the problem bigger?

If this is how you feel, that private companies already have too many fingers in the political arena and are turning policy in their favor, then the only option for you is the public option.

As it stands now all healthcare options are  owned,regulated,price marked and everything else relating to  them by the for-profit health insurance companies. Your doctor doesn’t decide his fee, Cigna,Aetna,BCBS decide what and if they will pay him.It is the insurance company who decides what they will pay, who they will pay, where they will pay.. who can get their product and  who can keep their product even after paying for it for decades. Without a public option, the way it is now will look like the ‘better’ way in 5 years..

Think about it for  second… A not-for-profit public option that would be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects, going from the Government to the healthcare provider(i.e.. doctor,clinic,hospital)  is  a direct line to the ones doing the service. Yet, this has been deemed evil,socialistic,freedom robbing and bad because it is the government who is collecting the money and giving it out to the providers…

The other alternative is that we subsidized[pay for] not just the >5% who would chose a public option but all 45 million uninsured American with a credit that comes from private and public funds{i.e. taxpayers} . The difference is  that the money goes directly to the insurance company where they take their 30% cut and then decide whether to pay the doctors/hospitals the rest. It is a mainline from your wallet into the wallets of the same types you say you are against, the private companies- NOT the doctors and hospitals proving your care.

Somehow the government  paying the insurance company with taxpayer’s money instead of the provider being paid with the fees that those in the option have paid for is the better option for some. How it’s  better or less socialist for the government to subsidize the insurance companies is something I haven’t had explained to me even though I keep asking,but let’s keep moving.

Not only will the government subsidize the insurance company, but without regulation or something in the market competing with them, the insurance companies can get their ‘asking price’ for any policy they offer, meaning they can start charging the government whatever they want for the healthcare the government is buying from them..while still retaining the right to decide how much they will reimburse the doctors,hospitals or if they even will reimburse them.

What is being asked for here to control this is the choice of a public option, for  less than 5% of the uninsured in the United States .   Less than 5% of those uninsured now, not 20% of the entire population, 50% all of the United States of America, but >5% of the 18% who are without insurance..

I’m not being a smart-ass.. but read that again before moving on…

“Let me be clear — it would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance,” he said.

“No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates,

we believe that less than 5 percent of Americans would

sign up.”-Obama health speech before congress

we’re talking millions of people yes,  but single digit millions.

The not-for-profit public  option will force these unregulated companies to atleast keep their fees reasonable. It won’t put them out of business, the creation of any reform will ensure 45 million more people buy their product. That’s not taking money away from them… that is a windfall of fat cash coming their direction.

The not-for-profit public option will force these companies to own up to their contracts and actually pay out more claims, because to deny someone coverage because of a preexisting condition will become illegal.  It will force them to become a better product than they are right now, because  right now the ‘free market’ is allowing them to have all the marbles whether those be taxpayers marbles or private marbles. It is allowing them to collect whatever amount of money they want while choosing when and who to pay it out to. You purchased your insurance plan to cover your medical costs, you didn’t  purchase it so they company you chose could have complete autonomy to do with your money as they saw fit and thus leaving you responsible for the doctor bill at the same time.

Again, read this again. You pay the insurance company to cover your health care costs.. if they deem your claim unworthy, you are still responsible for the payment  to the doctor/clinic or hospital who treated you. So now you have paid the insurance company to keep your money and the doctor to treat you. Seriously people, if you just want to send your money to someone while still being responsible for your bills, I’ll be glad to accept it instead.

To put it simply, there are only two choices here.. .We either pay the insurance companies to insure the uninsured and thus, paying their fee for doing this  or we pay the doctors directly to treat the uninsured. If you don’t like big Pharma being involved in the politics and decision making, then you can’t be against something that  takes big insurance out of the politics and decision making on people lives.

What is wrong with giving the overwhelming majority of the people a choice of what is out there?  That’s all, a choice.

I found a quote from Bill Moyers on another blog that said

“we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.”

I can’t imagine it being put into simpler terms.

If you are wondering just how much around the fingers of the insurance CEO’s the politicians have wrapped themselves, there are calls for ‘tort reform’.  This will in essence regulate how much money a lawyer can be paid for his services. Why are we so against providers of the actual services being reimbursed for their product and so much in favor of the companies who offer no other service than to hold our money and decide who or if they will pay with it. If the doctors and lawyers charge too much, isn’t one of the tenents of ‘free market capitalism’ that they will be weeded out as their competitors  offered the same for less?  Isn’t government imposing the will of   a select few companies, who service is solely to pay these doctors and lawyers the money you gave them, isn’t imposing those companies will over the will of the ones doing  the service you hired them for,  more detrimental to  the idea of Capitalism?

****UPDATE****

sometimes a good video says it all…

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

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The summer of Darth…

Image by Fr Antunes via Flickr

The last of the dogs days of summer always bring a special thrill around my house with the long hot days, waning at a speed that you can almost see. Each  coral pink sunrise brings with it   a kind of  mounting tension in anticipation of the building heat that the day is surely to bring, a heat that increases through the hours until finally bursting into an uneasy, yet calm coolness that comes after the burnt amber sun sets. These are the happiest days for me, but not because they bring with them the anticipation of the cold months just ahead, but because they bring with them the memories of when I was 18. A time when life was without the worry of mortgages,jobs.. responsibilities. It was  the last summer before college, before I was forced to become a man, it’s also the time I spent fucking my mother’s best friend in every room room of her house.. and some rooms in the neighboring houses.

Dear Velvet StraitJacket,

This is my story…

In every town, in every city this story is played out, but to me it’s the only story that matters from my youth. I was a popular kid, I played football and baseball, had the fast muscle car and good looks. I had the grades and charisma that got me most of what I wanted, I just didn’t know how much of what I wanted I was about to get.

Each summer my mother and her best friend Shauna would spend Sunday mornings planning out the leisure activities of the

Image via Wikipedia

week to help keep the school kids occupied throughout the summer. It was an informal.. or community ‘summer camp’ program so to speak. The stuff they came up with each year was cheesy, but none the less.. fun.  One year we had water balloon fights on the City Hall lawn, another year we all painted our favorite comic book character on the fences of our neighbors around town,(the clean up of that one wasn’t that fun though). Yeah, we were a small town, but we still had a fair share of the unusual.

This summer had been no different, for the last few years my mother and Shauna had been doing ‘Theme Summer” where they would pick a book off of the summer reading list and plan ‘themed’ activities throughout the summer for us kids to do.  Of course these activities and books were age appropriate, you couldn’t have 3rd graders parading around town with an upper case “A” sewn onto their clothing, but this was exactly what was required of the seniors this summer.

Since my senior year had already ended and I was on my to college, I was ‘excused’ from the summer activities my mother and Shauna dreamed up this year. I will admit though, I was a little disappointed  because this time it looked like  the last night of “Themed summer”( which always ended in an all night party where the attendees are required to come in costume)  looked like might have been a little more fun than last summer’s “Grape’s of Wrath” theme. Shauna knew I was torn between wanting to break away from these childish frivolities and jumping right into them with my peers.

As the summer dragged on endlessly I started to notice the way Shauna would look at me when she thought no one was watching.  I had been with enough of the local high schools girls to know that I was good looking, they all seemed to melt into wet puddles of hot flesh when I just smiled in their direction. Ha, so many nights spent in the mustang taking what each of the hot little cheerleaders,social misfits and once, an extremely sexy nerd, were all willing to give me.  It was a great fucking time to be a teenage boy. But never had an adult like Shauna looked at me the same way these others had looked at me. It gave me a thrill to think that I might actually get a taste of this older woman before going off to college to plunder the panties of the newly freed-from parental constraints freshman class.

While I knew there wasn’t a chance with Shauna, she was 30 and married.. I was 18 and her best friends son, I just couldn’t stop the fantasy from seeping in when I would catch her looking at me like I was something she wanted to swallow whole.  Had I been a little less lucky with the teenage fodder, that image of being swallowed whole would have made for some pretty uncomfortable nights, but since I was rarely, if ever,  alone at night.. I found it was quite pleasing to imagine Shauna was the one doing consuming. What I found out in the coming days though, was that the local flavor were amateurs at everything.. hell, even I, who had had all them over the course of my high school years, was an amateur and Shauna was an amazing teacher.

[2]

The ‘all-night’ party was to be at my house this year and my mother had asked me to either help with the fun or stay out of her way. I had planned on staying the night with Bill because I even though it looked to be fun, Bill and I had other plans.. plans that include a bottle of vodka and a couple teenage sluts looking for a rowdy night of fun. I was on the phone will Bill trying to figure out which girls would be the most fun to bring along when Shauna came into the room.

“So, you don’t plan on attending the all nighter?” she asked me a little disappointed.

“nah.. Bill and I are going to …”

“Fuck a couple of whores until they scream…” she interrupted..” yeah, I heard that part before I came into the room”  she said with a smile.  For one second her tongue inched out of her mouth and swept lightly over her top lip, I was instantly aroused.

“Well, that’s the plan.” I said confidently.  I could tell she was enjoying this conversation.. I just never expected the next words to come out of her mouth..

“Well, if its whores you want I’m sure you can find them easy enough… but if you really want to fuck something until it screams.. ” she said while slowly walking over to me. “I might have a better offer” she smiled coyly, while leaning in to lightly brush her full lips softly across mine and then she turned to walk away. When she got to the doorway, she turned back towards me with a burning look in her eye and said “Think about it Marc, all night, anything goes.. I’ll show you things you never knew existed” and she walked out of the room.

My mind was flying into so many directions that I forgot Bill was on the phone and had probably heard every part of Shauna’s offer. I put the phone up to my ear just as Bill said “Dude, tell me you’re fucking kidding me.. tell me that was a fucking joke on your old pal Bill!” I could barely drop the smile from my face long enough to answer him “Uh, I don’t know if it’s a joke or not.. but I don’t think I’m going to lake with you” I said and hung up.

The  end of summer all night party came fast and hard. I had spent the day anticipating the party I would be having inside Shauna. I was on my way out the door to pick up some last minute supplies for my mom when I heard her on the phone, she was disappointed.

“Are you sure you can’t just come over for part of the night Shauna? I mean you’ve worked just as hard as I have at this, Ben’s out of town and I’d hate to think that you were sitting in that house all alone while we’re over here having a good time.” The frown and worry on my mother’s face seemed to disappear and was soon replaced with something I didn’t recognize. My mother looked at me and glared, I was positive Shauna wasn’t on the phone telling my mother that she had plans to let me fuck her until she or I or both of us screamed.. but the look my mother gave me shook my confidence.

“Well, I’m not going to lie Shauna, I’m a little jealous.  I miss the days when I could have a quiet house to myself to just lay on the couch and enjoy a good book. But I guess with Marc leaving soon, I’ll have more of those nights than I’ll want.” It wasn’t anger  I had seen on my mother’s face, it was a profound sadness that she was losing her son to world outside of her making. I wish I could have told her that I was going to be fine, but I knew she wouldn’t believe it, so instead I walked up to her and kissed the top of her head and smiled down at her. She pushed me away with a chuckle and started talking to Shauna again.

“Well, you give me a call if you can’t get your fever down. I can always send Marc over with something to ease you” and she hung up.

I could only imagine the smile on Shauna’s face.

[3]

Finally it was time, the first of the party-goers had arrived and I was about to go hang out with Bill, or so I had told my mother. What I really had planned was a night of hedonistic pleasure that even the most hard-core nymphomaniac rolling on ecstasy  would blush at.

“Marc! Wait!” my mother called from the kitchen

“Yeah Mom, I know… no drinking and driving, no girls past 1am, and nothing illegal” I said to her.

“No, that’s not what I wanted.. but yes, that’s exactly what I want” she said with a smile. “Can you do me a favor before heading over to Bill’s? Shauna seems to have a fever that she can’t get rid of, do you think you could take her something for me to help her out a little?”  and she handed me a bottle of motrin.

“Yeah mom, I’ll give her something to help out of her fever.” I said and left before the smile on my face gave away any of the images running through my mind.

[4]

Shauna’s house was at the end of the street and it was hidden back away from the road, shrouded by trees.  As I came up the driveway and walked up the steps, I could see candlelight coming from the windows above, the rest of the house was dark. I knocked lightly on the door and it opened as soon as I touched it. The room before me was unlit, but not dark. The large picture window in the back of the house let in the moonlight and much to my surprise, there was a few candles lit on the dining room table, which was set for two. I couldn’t imagine anything that I planned on eating, or planned on feeding her, showing up on the menu tonight.

“Marc” I heard coming softly from above me. I turned and walked up the stairs and as I came to the room at the top I stopped, for there she stood waiting for me in the tiniest white, lacy, négligée I have ever seen even to this day… and she was perfect. Her long golden hair spilled down around her shoulders and her face to the very top of her breasts. You could just barely see a hint of her dark nipples through the flimsy white material. Her perfectly flat and well toned stomach was glistening with just a light mist of sweat, as I stared, a small drop rolled down from between her breasts, down the contours of her stomach, to the top of her panty line where it disappeared. I could only imagine what it would be like to trace that same path with my tongue.

“Do you want me Marc?” she asked in a sultry voice

Image by Sarahnaut via Flickr

I was frozen, I could only nod yes. She laughed softly, amused at my nervousness. She walked towards me gracefully,decidedly… each long tanned, muscular leg  bringing her closer to me.  Each step causing the lacy material of her panties to contract over her sensuous flesh, outlining every line and lip beneath them. As she reached me I could barely stand still, but I couldn’t have moved if the house burst into flames around me. She reached out with her finger and traced my lips , down my neck, my chest, my stomach to crotch of my pants where she felt how hard I was. She smiled at me lustfully and unzipped my pants, pulling my rock hard cock out. “I think we should get this first one out of the way, don’t you?” she asked me. Before I could nod she was on her knees in front of me, wrapping her luscious,wet lips around the head of my cock and swallowing me all the way down.

The feeling was explosive, this was not my first blow job, but it might as well have been. All the others before this had been done shyly, timidly by girls who weren’t very sure of what they were doing and didn’t really like it anyway. But this.. this was a woman who didn’t just know how to suck every inch of my cock, but enjoyed every fucking part of it. A shiver went through me as she expertly licked each of my balls. Her hands tightly squeezed of my shaft, squeezing almost hard enough to make me scream out only to be lightly grasping it by the time she reached the tip. I was ready to come and she skillfully deep-throated my entire cock, forcing me to release everything down her  throat in a blazing hot gush of insane pleasure. I couldn’t stop the moan from coming out of my mouth as she was swallowed and let out a muffled moan of her own.

[5]

“mmmmm.. you taste amazing!” she said as she looked up at me.  She looked so fucking hot on her knees like that, grasping my already hard again cock in her hand. She had an evil smile on her face that sent a thrill throughout my entire body. “I think I want more” she said inhaling my dick again, only this time instead of finishing, she stood up and started walking towards  the bed. She only got a few steps before she half-turned to look at me and “C’mon Marc, I’ve waited long enough for this and I’m not waiting any longer.” I was unfrozen from where I was standing and walked towards her.

As she got to the large bed, she turned and smiled at me motioning for me to come but I was already there grabbing her by the back the back of her head and kissing her. As I pressed into her, I felt her fingernails tracing down my spine. I kissed her neck, moving down to each of her exquisite breasts, her nipples were dark and hard,  and I cruelly bit them. She gasped in pain and pleasure, but did not cry out for me to stop like the high schools girls had before her. While my mouth was learning every contour of her flesh, my hands were searching for warm place to enter. I grabbed her  under her thigh and pulled her leg up around me, my hands taking a hold of her beautiful ass, squeezing and massaging it as roughly I wanted, groans of pleasure were coming from the both of us. My other hand grabbed her by the back of her head, pulling her head  back hard and forcing her to cry out. I suddenly stopped and shoved her onto the bed, she fell back and looked at me with a smile on her face “Come and take me Marc” she begged, and I was happy to be of service to her.

I climbed on to the bed, she was sitting  up  on her elbows, her mouth slightly open, her tongue running over her teeth. I pushed her legs open and looked down at the perfect way she was laid out before me. I tore her lacy panties off, not caring if they were ruined or not. She had a small strip of hair just over her lips, not too much but enough that I knew I was getting a real woman and not some naive high school cheerleader. I bent down and parted her lips with my tongue, she tasted sweeter than any other before her. She writhed and groaned as my tongue explored deep into her flawlessly pink pussy. Her clit was swollen, engorged and with just the barest flick of my tongue she came harder than she had ever come before.

Shauna looked down at me between her thighs, she cupped my chin and pulled me up to her pressing her mouth onto mine. As she kissed me roughly, her hand grabbed my throbbing cock. She stroked me up and down, driving me crazy teasing me and rubbing the head of dick all over her swollen clit.

“Can you feel how hot and wet you make me baby?” Shauna asked me, her hands pulling my hard cock into her.

“Not yet darlin'” I said as I pulled out of her, now it was my turn to smile down to her. With my thumb I lightly massaged her clit, as I slowly rubbed it she began to twist and rock her hips and she starting begging me to fuck her, but it wasn’t time for that…. yet.

“Oh God.. that..  feels sooo good baby. I want you deep inside me Marc, I want you in me hard..” she plead with me. She began rocking her hips faster and moaning with a tormented plea to fuck her “Please baby.. let me come on your dick!” She thrust her hips upward as she started to come and that was my cue, while she was coming I thrust my rock hard cock up into her so hard that her head hit the wall behind her, she screamed out in pleasure, her nails scraping down my back all the way down to my ass where she pulled me into her deeper and harder. “Yes.. Oh God! Yes..harder.. fuck me Harder!” she screamed. Her whole body twitched beneath me, the spasms from the orgasm  rippling through every pore of her luscious flesh. Her head was thrown back, her eyes were half-open and she had the sexiest smile spreading over her face that I have ever seen. As she opened her eyes, a throaty groan rose out her. She licked her full lips and harshly grabbed the back of my hair, forcing her tongue into my mouth, passionately kissing me like her world was just ending.. or maybe for the first time, beginning. That kiss alone was enough to make me come, I shoved deep into her just as she thrust her hips upward making sure to get all of my cock inside her and came for the first time in my life. In that moment I knew that all the other times before were just practice  for this time.  Every nerve in my body was alive and full of spasms, I felt my very soul bursting out of me in a hot flow of unimaginable  bliss.

[6]

If that was the end of my story it would be enough,but it wasn’t. I spent the night exploring every part of Shauna’s sensuous body, fulfilling every carnal, debauched pleasure I could dream of. I violated every part of her body and she screamed in pleasure through it all, her nails raking my back, her hands forcing me into her as hard and as fast as I could. It was a night I have never been able to recreate with any of the other women I have been with. No, the long drawn out days of those dogs days of summer are as gone as the carefree life of a young man on his way to becoming a man, but while the untroubled life of  those joyous day may have disappeared a long time ago, the thrill of the memory of my summer with Shauna is alive and well.

Chuck's story…

Anecdotal evidence is never a game-changer unless the subject of the evidence is a great friend who has accomplished so many things in his life and has made the best out of a crappy hand life dealt him. Then, sometimes.. not always but sometimes.. that kind of evidence strikes the right cord in the right people and then change really does come.

I’ve tried to give you guys the examples of people I knew, in the hopes that you may have known people like them and/or could feel the desperation of their situation and maybe want to find a way to help them, but I failed in bringing the people I was targeting over to just the idea that change is needed, much less my idea of what that change should be. But maybe this time, with the example being someone we all know, we all respect and care for.. maybe this is the straw that breaks the camels back for some people and maybe some of those will go on to help fight for what is desperately needed in this country, instead of trying to kill any hope at all of a reprieve for those that are stuck in a situation they had no control over.

Even though he gave me permission, I  still thought about changing the name in this piece and just sticking to the story. I knew that even with omitting the name most of us would know who I was talking about with just one or 2 words about him so there was no need for him to be anything other than anonymous to the rest, but I don’t want him to  be just another blind example, I want you to say his name in your head when you are fighting against health care reform. When you look at the words of the President

But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that’s not making anybody’s mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.

I want the name Chuck Conners aka Uselesslegs in your thoughts when you blithely mock  this very real problem in our very broken system. I want Chuck’s story in the forefront of your brain, when you argue that we have the best care anywhere, that there is no such thing as that silly concept of doctors charging for a surgery when you only need a pill.. I want you to tell Chuck’s story to a friend or family member, and then explain to them why President OBama and the Democrats are just trying to kill this country and kill our ‘wonderful’ healthcare.

Before I continue, after Chuck told me his story and I started writing it I realized that this is the story for not having a public option, this is the reason why the government shouldn’t be in the medical insurance field. I know that there are blind loyalists  out there who will miss the point of this story and only latch on to the easy part of the problem, they’ll do this because they don’t have the intellect to see the big picture, they are the ‘death panelists’.. and ‘birthers’…the ideologue,  to them I will just nod and say “Yes Dear”.. I  was worried about writing this because the lack of brain mass some of these people have is more than made up by their vocal abilities and abhorrent behavior, but if I want to be true, if I want to be honest.. this type of story should never happen. It should not happen with private  or government run care. We need reform and anyone not seeing that, or not seeing that this is also a problem in the private sector needs to just go build another sign and leave the serious matters to the adults to figure out.

First a little back story for those that don’t know. Chuck has muscular dystrophy and it has progressed so over the past few years that he is completely dependent on a wheelchair to get around and someone to help him in and out of it. At 42, he’s already lived well past anyone’s guess…and he’s done so with a kind of dignity,humility and humor that I never knew existed. Chuck understands that people are uncomfortable with the disabled,  we don’t know how to act, where to look, what to say, so Chuck takes it upon himself to break that uncomfortable moment with a self deprecating joke or a well-rehearsed fart noise. My oldest daughter was one of the people he endeared himself to immediately with his ‘ice-breaking’. She knew of him and his disability, but she didn’t know of his humor..yet. When he called my house and she answered, she very innocently asked “How ya doing Chuck?”.. His reply was a simple scream “I”m in a wheelchair.. HOW DO YOU THINK I’M DOING!”. She immediately stared to cry because she thought she had done something to offend him, she was in the act of throwing the phone at me and spilling the story out when I couldn’t control my laughing any longer, I told her to listen to the phone, and there was Chuck laughing while at the same time trying to soothe her into knowing he was just kidding around with her. He hadn’t joked with her to be mean to her, but he knew, like all people in his or similar situations know, that us ‘normal’ people just don’t know how to react to them. He taught not only her, but my younger daughter, that it’s ok to look at someone in a wheelchair, or someone who is disabled, it’s ok to talk with them and be relaxed around them.. He taught them that it’s ok to treat them as normal and to laugh with and enjoy them just as they would anyone else. For that I say Thank you, because I didn’t learn this ease and comfort until I was much much older and Chuck was the one who taught it to me also.

But, the perfect example of Chuck and the way he looks at life is right there on the back of  his car, his registration tag, which simply reads…. “Gimpy”. The humor in that one word sums up the man that’s sitting the wheelchair inside that van.

When you hear Chucks life story, you can’t help but wonder what it would have been had he been physically ‘normal’, personally I don’t think he would have been as colorful, as funny.. and unique, what God took, he gave back in other ways.  The stories he can tell you about how his father scared him with a tarantula, how because of the ‘fear’ practical jokes his father would play on him, he ‘accidentally’ hit his father in the head with hammer to save his older brother, the teenage girl who peed on his couch when a stuffed squirrel was thrown at her, and my family’s favorite.. when his poncho got stuck in the wheels of his wheelchair and he was stuck going in circles until his companions could stop laughing long enough to extricate him.. These are the stories that make him who he is and had he not had a debilitating disease, I wonder if would he have had the same sense of humor?

At one time Chuck was THE Jerry’s Kid. His face graced many a magazine and poster. Not only was he part of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon’s we all used to sit around and watch all weekend, but he was also the youngest Jaycee and was an honorary member of the VFW. He’s made the best of what was given to him, but even with all of the support he was given by all of these great and selfless people and an amazing organization, if it wasn’t for the Medicaid/Medicare program, he wouldn’t have lived past his early teens.  The Muscular Dystrophy Association helps with what they can, but they are not equipped to deal with it all.

For people like Chuck, the idea of a private insurance is laughable.. to them, the idea that a government run system would destroy what this country was built on, is an insanity. It’s because of medicaid/medicare that people like Chuck aren’t regulated to some orphanage or ditch out behind the woodshed. It’s Medicare/Medicaid that pays for his medicine, his doctors, his wheelchair. It was medicaid that came into his house recently and installed rails on his ceiling for a ‘body lift’ that can take him from his bed, to his toilet, to his bath. Until that day earlier this year when the rail was installed, Chuck  hasn’t had an actual “bath” in years. Showers and sponge baths, sure, but a tub bath? No.  He doesn’t measure life in grand increments, he’s never been able to, but to be able to finally sit down in a tub was a grand day for him.

It wasn’t until the other day that Chuck also found out just how horrible our system really is. Government run or not, he found himself in a pile of shit with no way out of it.   The sad part is that I’m not exaggerating or hyper-ventilating hyperbole..

Chuck’s mother moved in with him some years ago when it became apparent that he was going to start needing more intensive around the clock care. He’s been able to do for  himself for so many years, but his disease isn’t one that goes into remission or gets better over time, even the strongest or most lucky eventually fall victim to disappearing strength due the shrinking muscles. It’s because of his mother that he doesn’t need a daily visiting nurse, or God-forbid to live in an assisted living facility. It’s also in my opinion what has kept him going all these years, had she been like other parents who just couldn’t do it anymore and put him in a state run, or if by some stroke of luck, privately  funded assisted living care, disease and disregard would have killed him years ago. It’s not that these places would have necessarily treated him poorly,  but it’s just the nature of the beast that they zap  your will to live in small increments over time and then there is the spread of colds,flu’s and other disease that affects someone like Chuck so detrimentally and are so rampant in the close confines of these homes. Yes, it’s my belief that his mothers sacrifice all these years has lead to his longevity, not just in the extended  years of  his life, but in the life he has lived over the years. A nursing home would have curb his spirit, his joy, his imagination.. it would have killed what makes Chuck, Chuck.

A couple of weeks ago Chuck’s mom was struck by an acute illness that required emergency surgery, which required an extended hospital stay and a long convalescence at home. In other words, now she needed to be cared for and not only was Chuck unable to do this in return for her sacrifice all these years for him, but his physical capabilities have deteriorated so much that he was left wondering who was going to care for him.  He knew that his brother would come up and help him once, maybe twice a week, but he was also painfully aware that there were going to be times when he would be in need of assistance and no one would be there to help. I don’t mean in need of showers or baths, cooking food to eat, or help getting into bed. No, Chuck has learned to go without a bath or shower and use a washcloth, he’s learned to eat whatever is handy in his line of reach, and as for sleeping.. well he can just roll his chair up to the dining room table and rest his head on his arms and get a few winks that way.  Things we all take for granted, things that are the extreme of simple to us.. well, he’s found his way to enjoy also. No, the help I am talking about is our own basic body functions..  urination and defecation.  Chuck has found a way around those too, he just stops eating and drinking.  But even this is not perfection.

Because he knew that he was going to need just a few minutes help each week until his mother had recovered, he called his medicaid office to ask for a visiting nurse or nursing assistant to come out 30 minutes a week to help him. Before I go any farther I want you to think about that. Try for a minute to think if you could limit yourself to a bathroom break at a predestined time, once or maybe twice during a 7 day period.  Do you have that kind of control, do you think it would be easy on a Monday to just say to  yourself  “Ok, I can’t poop again until Thursday at 9am” .  Welcome to Chuck’s world.

When he made his request to the insurance office, he didn’t ask for someone to come out every other day and bathe him, or every day to help him  on the toilet. Like I said, those things he’s been able to curb by not eating or drinking. But even the best starvation doesn’t keep you from having to use the bathroom for an entire week and he knew that. So Chuck’s humble request was for someone to come out once a week and help him with that problem, the rest of the time he would ration his food and drink and ‘hold it’ until his brother could come up on the weekend. The medicaid representative  was very helpful, she understood what he needed and told him she had just the thing for him.. a 90 day stay in an assisted living facility. Now, besides this being a death sentence for someone in Chucks condition, it was an absurdity to him because he didn’t need that kind of help, he just needed someone to come out and help him in and out of his chair for a couple minutes a week. He explained this again to the woman on the phone, but as sympathetic as she was, she couldn’t give him a visiting nurse or CNA.. she could only give him a 90 stay at his local old-folks home. Chuck, understandable upset, refused and then started the process of limiting his food,water and ‘holding it’…. and he almost made it.

It had only been a few days, he’d gone longer in the past, but whether it was something he ate that didn’t agree with him or whether nature just had to take it’s course, he failed in his attempted to not soil himself. It wasn’t much, just a little bit of a bowel movement, but it was enough that he knew he was sitting in his own shit and worse than that, there was nothing he could do about it anytime soon. Even if his brother came up right then, he was an hour away and Chuck would be sitting there in his own mess the whole time, and that is exactly what happened.

I’ve noticed that even the most ‘shy’ of us reach a point where it doesn’t matter who sees or smells what, we just need help and we need it right then. That’s the place were Chuck was, sitting in his own shit, waiting for his brother to come up and help wash him up. Help wash the area on Chuck off, was his clothes off and wash his chair off. What a humbling experience this must have been, it had to have the most humbling hour of his life. But it eventually came to the point where he didn’t care who came in and saw or smelled what… he just wanted help. He found out those moments waiting for his brother to come up and clean him, just what it meant that he was disabled. I’m know that through the years there had to be many other moments that came up and made him realize this fact, but I’m not sure that any humiliated him the way this time did.

The next day he again called and begged the insurance company for 1-30 minute visit a week so he could avoid a repeat of the day before, he was again denied. They would of course be happy to spend tens of thousands of dollars for him to unnecessarily stay in a 24 hr facility for 90 days, but no. .. they would not under any circumstances pay  $50-$75 a week for 5-6 weeks for a nurse to come to his home.

…and people say reform is not needed, that there is no waste in healthcare, that to cut any unnecessary procedures means a ‘rationing’ of care, that doctors don’t prescribe  that which is unnecessary over that which is needed in the name of greed and the all mighty dollar?

Chuck’s story has ended well, he finally got a hold of a worker who would listened to his sense that he didn’t need a 90 day,thousands of dollars treatment… he just need a 30 minute weekly visit. She set him up with not one, but 2 visits a week.

Whether it’s medicare,medicaid or private insurance.. reform is needed.  Had Chuck decided to take the medicaid office up on it’s offer, thousands of dollars would have been wasted when only a couple hundred were all that was needed. Those thousands could have gone to someone else care instead, someone who didn’t have insurance.. or 100 someone’s without insurance but in need of a flu shot this season. There are a million different ways that money could have been used properly, but because it is a Democrat asking for that reform, the psycho ‘right’ has an apoplectic  fit about him wanting to pull the plug on grandma, him wanting to stop seniors from getting hip-replacements and heart surgery or him wanting to kill of  the ‘damaged’ children of our society.

When a party says that the President who wants to talk to kids about the value of eduction and to stay in school is really trying to ‘indoctrinate’ them into a new version of ‘Hitler’s Youth’.. it’s time the adults stand up and tell these crazies to shut the fuck up already…the adults on both sides of the aisle. The sad part is the GOP’s lack of caring in all that is going on.  Some know that the fringe they are courting and allowing into the debate field are as bat-shit crazy as they come, but they know that they are also so desperate for an answer that if the Liberals are distracted enough by the insanity, they themselves will have time to actually come up with that answer. The crazies will eventually be throw out of the party,  the Conservatives aren’t that stupid, but until then the rest of will just sit in our chairs… not eating.. not drinking.. and praying that we don’t shit ourselves before our brother comes to rescue us from situation that we can’t just ‘pull our boot-straps up’ and get out of on our own.

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