Insurgents' Ink: Living with Lupus, Seeking Well-Endowed Healthcare (Part 1 of 2)

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Living with Lupus, Seeking Well-Endowed Healthcare (Part 1 of 2)

With a topic as broad as “medicine,” I had difficulties pinpointing a specific topic to write an article on. An obvious choice was the current healthcare bill being pushed, but there was another topic lurking in every corner of my life that I hadn’t considered: living with lupus.

Lupus is an autoimmune disease that manifests itself in a variety of ways, including: arthritis, fatigue, sensitivity to sunlight, and kidney failure. Most sufferers of the disease are young women in their early thirties. I was diagnosed with lupus about a year and a half ago at age twenty-nine.

Mild arthritic symptoms began meekly presenting themselves about a year before I was diagnosed, in the form of stiff shoulders, neck, and elbows. As a part-time teacher, I didn’t have health insurance, so I dismissed my stiffness as part of getting older and tried to go on with my life. Over the course of a couple of weeks, however, my symptoms quickly progressed to my wrists, fingers, hips, knees, ankles, and then toes. One November morning, I found myself unable to sit up in bed.

My husband drove me to the emergency room. The doctor heard my complaints and forebodingly said that I needed to get health insurance. He didn’t say what he suspected was wrong with me, stating that I wouldn’t be able to get health insurance if I had a preexisting condition. He ordered blood tests, and while I waited for the results, the medical bills for my emergency room visit and lab work arrived. The hospital’s charitable program for low-income patients covered some of it. I had to come up with $700.

I picked up my indecipherable lab results and went to a doctor at a private practice to have them translated. This was a feat in itself since many doctors are loathe to see cash patients—those without insurance who are willing to pay upfront with cash. The doctor reviewed my lab results and heard my complaints. It was either rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or lupus. If it was RA, there was medication I could take to diminish the symptoms. If it was lupus, I could be dead in three months from inflammation of the brain.

I knew that the doctor was giving me the worst-case scenario for lupus, but to hear the doctor say those words—“dead in three months”—filled me with indescribable fear. He failed to mention that lupus affects the major organs of only a very small percentage of people. Most people live long, relatively healthy lives.

After the doctor’s brusque diagnosis, he stated that I needed to get health insurance immediately no matter how much money it cost (implying that I hadn’t had insurance because I chose to use that money for frivolous things). In the meantime, he said, Take 800 mg of Motrin every four hours. He walked out the door without saying another word.

I left the office with a friend who had been in the waiting room, and we walked to my car. I broke down and sobbed, telling her what the doctor had told me. My friend tried to comfort me while I tried to understand what was happening to my body.

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Submission Guidelines

1. We are currently seeking critical essay submissions on the topic of the intersectionality of sexism and racism,

We accept Poetry and Short Fiction submissions on any topic.

2. All submissions must meet (or come close to meeting) the following word counts:

· Critical essays – 500 to 5,000 words. Include a bibliography, if applicable.

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Bios

Amber Dickey- Co-Editor
She received an M.A. in English with an emphasis on literature and a B.A. in English with an American literature concentration from CSU Sacramento. As an undergraduate, Amber won second place in the Bazzanella Literary Awards for her critical analysis of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. She is an avid fan of the Lost Generation writers, Héléne Cixous, bell hooks, Judith Butler, and many, many others. Her interests lie in the arts, poverty and race studies, gender studies, queer theory, pedagogy, and the Feminist Movement debate. She credits her mother's strength and perseverance as a single mother of three with inspiring her to work hard for everything she wants and never take shit from anyone.

Autumn Newman- Co-Editor
Autumn is a feminist new-formalist poet who received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast low-residency program where she had the opportunity to work with poets Annie Finch, Baron Wormser and many other talented writers. She also holds a BA in English from California State University, Sacramento, where the poet and professor Joshua McKinney infected her with a seemingly innocent, yet unyielding, addiction to formal poetics. Autumn’s poems have appeared in various small poetry journals and most recently online at Able Muse and Cider Press Review. Aside from poetry and feminism, Autumn’s passions include: pedagogy, graphic novels, music, film, domestic violence education, race relations and all issues that affect and contribute to the unequal power structure of our society.

What's in a Name?

Insurgents’ Ink is a labor of love, and at no moment were the labor pains more evident than when we struggled to come up with an appropriate name for this blog. French feminist Héléne Cixous in her well-known piece from the 1970s, Laugh of the Medusa, famously explicated her concept of insurgency. In it, she urges her female readers to commit an act of insurgency by the simple act of writing, an act, she argues, that allows females to actively resist the historical imperative that women remain in the background. Writing allows women to reclaim their bodies and their minds.

Of course, the term “insurgent” has taken on a far more insidious connotation in our post-9/11 world; read anachronistically, Cixous seems to be likening écriture féminine to terrorism. While we certainly do not wish to take Cixous’ words out of context, we got a chuckle out of the female-writer-as-terrorist connection. But more importantly, we wanted to acknowledge the feminist thinkers who have come before us.

But “Insurgents” is only one half of the name; “Ink” forms the other half and is inspired by the same source. Cixous extends her insurgency metaphor to include writing with white ink: a dual reference to maternity and invisibility. It was important to us that our blog not only provoke our readers, but also inspire them to write. And it is our hope that Insurgents’ Ink will do just that.

Our Purpose

Unlike many blogs, Insurgents’ Ink is not intended as a forum for one individual’s personal opinions. Rather, the purpose of this blog is to provide a forum for a number of people not only to express their opinions, but also to contribute critical essays as well as poems and short works of fiction.

Our intent is to facilitate meaningful discussions, knowing full well that we will encounter differing opinions, and welcoming the subsequent dialogue.

Whether you are female or male, a believer in a “fourth wave” of feminism or a champion of the Nietzschean-like declaration that “Feminism is Dead”—we believe that virtually anything can be approached through a feminist lens. And perhaps more importantly, we believe that contemporary issues confronting feminists and females should be discussed amongst a broad collective of writers.

We encourage you to follow our blog and share your thoughts/writing with a community of feminists! If you’re interested in submitting an essay, poem, or short fiction, please read the “Submission Requirements."