Your body is attacking you. This can happen anywhere and at any time, at school, driving in the car, while you are asleep even while you stand in line at the Wal-Mart.While you are placing your purchases on the belt to be pulled to the nice elderly cashier who is scanning your items all of a sudden your insides decide they have to come out. This revolt happens as your muscles act as little soldiers inside you gripping your insides twisting, turning, and pulling. Your legs feel like jelly all weakened because it feels like the combatants with their warfare are trying to knock you off your feet. There is an urgent sense to vacate the premises immediately in a panic you watch as the cashier who is old as methuselah with flaming red and gray hair but you picked her cause of how friendly she is beep scans your products beep. Beep. Beep. So slowly the beeps come you analyze your necessary path of escape to find the closest bathroom because everything in your body must come out. Sometimes there is no telling where it’s going to come out, just explode from either end or at burst out at the same time. Beep. Apprehension makes you fret about how long this assault will last will it be a short one or two hours or fifteen days of agony the not knowing cause even more alarm. Worry and anxiety overwhelm the possibility of any rational thought beep making you feel like a wild animal ready to flee its cage. Beep. Any bathroom at this point might as well be as far as the sun speaking of the sun you may have just landed there because your body is burning up and you are sweating so much you are sure you can fill a whole pool up. Beep. Stress makes everything worse intensifying the swelling and bloating of your stomach. Beep. You tense your whole body up to brace against the torture your body is putting you through. Just holding yourself up right feels like a great Olympic feat. Beep finally you can pay hastily, sweaty hands grab the buggy by the handles this is the only thing that is keeping you standing, slowly move your body which has been sealed up by all the muscle straining against the current revolt. Slowly moving like a wooden soldier who being chopped as he moves. Two steps before you make it to the bathroom the tension breaks your body slowly cools off. It’s a reprieve the angry minions have called a temporary retreat for whatever reason. The feeling of mercy compels you to be grateful things could have been so much worse. Ever so carefully you relax and breathe. You then hurry to the car so you can flee to the safety of your home and your bathroom.

In the scope of my chronic conditions this was not even that bad of a flare up. Some of the attacks have been so severe that I have spent weeks in the hospital. This is just some of the pain, discomfort, or personal issues I have to deal with while having Celiac Disease, Colitis, IBS, Diverticulitis and Endometriosis. I only know about having these conditions thanks to the availability of health care. I firmly believe that having the right diagnoses, medicines, and doctors has helped save my life. I finally got these diagnoses because of the insurance that my family and I qualified for through this wonderful program. This has helped improve the quality of my life in tremendous ways. I still have flare ups but they are manageable now due to the insurance that President Barack Obama instituted.

This has helped my family in a myriad of ways. Better health for me and my family. The amount of pain and discomfort that I feel on a daily basis has significantly decreased. Before this insurance I only went to the hospital in emergencies. I was often worried about how to pay the bill so I would delay going for as long as I could but with frequent attacks to my body due to all my conditions being undiagnosed and untreated I went often. People often make health care decisions based upon money. This led to a credit report full of debt because I often could not pay these bills. Having bad credit leads to an inability to find employment and it makes it difficult to get credit or that you will receive extremely high interest rates for necessary items like cars or homes. Money should not be a factor in rather or not someone gets treatment. On separate occasions both my grandmother and mother turned down ambulance rides that could have saved their lives but did not take them because they didn’t have the money to pay the bill for the rides to the hospital. The dollar should not decide if someone lives or dies. Health care should be free for all citizens.

We are guaranteed a “Life, Liberty and to pursuit to happiness” but this is hard to do with health issues affecting the quality of life of so many citizens. The frame work of our government is that all are “created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable.” Insurance not being available at the same low cost or free for every citizen in America is an infringement on our constitution and civil rights. The elected officials have the most wondrous insurance packages available to them. This same program, rightfully, should be available to all the citizens as well either free of charge or at a constant low rate. This is horribly unfair that these people have more privileges than they provide for their esteemed citizens. All citizens have the same value but are not treated in a way that demonstrates that by our chosen officials especially when big business has more influence over policies than the citizens do. This is an extreme version of hypocrisy that the healthcare package that elected officials have for life is not bestowed on the citizens that live in this country. Health care is a human right that all citizens should have to ensure that civil liberties are maintained equally and to ensure that justice is made available to all.

The more citizens get involved in our government by running as elected officials or voting in every election the more we can ensure that our country is represented “for the people by the people.” The most amazing thing is that each one of us really can and does make a difference. Save the lives of your fellow citizens. Choose to participate and make your voices heard!