Kim 🇺🇦😷 #BLM

This is the single most important point that most Americans are probably unaware of because our media sucks and the Democratic leadership sucks

@AngryRedInc OMG, I am so very, very sorry.

I posted this to a reply in this thread, but I wanted to share the experience here as well. It illustrates a fundamental lack of medical diagnostic skills in the industry. My wife began having trouble breathing last January. At her first doctor’s visit, she was told it was bronchitis and given antibiotics. When she didn’t improve, we went to urgent care, where they doubled down on the same diagnosis. We followed up with her GP, who performed an EKG but ordered no additional tests and offered no diagnosis. We went back to urgent care again, and again, nothing was done. Between January and April, she also saw a cardiologist and an allergist, yet still no one diagnosed her cancer. Out of desperation, we finally went to the ER in April. The initial diagnosis there was heartburn, I’m not joking. When I pleaded with the doctor to do something, anything, he agreed to order an MRI. When he returned to the room, he was pale white. He said, and this is a direct quote, “You have Stage IV cancer. It’s everywhere. I couldn’t give you a worse diagnosis and I’m sorry.” She was gone four months later.

Cigna just sent my dead wife, who succumbed to cancer last August, a DENIAL letter for a test to help diagnose her tumor markers. WTF is even going on with medical insurance companies? She left this world 6 months ago BECAUSE she couldn't get proper treatment. We don't hate these people enough.

I just got a phone call from a very nice lady who told me that she was calling from "Card Services". She said that a credit card had been applied for in my name and she noticed that the applicant's address is in Michigan while records indicate that I live in Florida. She told me that she was transferring me to a supervisor who would confirm my information so that they could put an alert in the credit bureau for me. Little did they know that I handle fraud at work and that's not how any of this works. Oddly, when I told her that one of my work duties is fraud detection and resolution she hung up. I don't like to think of myself as "elderly" elderly (I'm 67) but this is exactly the kind that many of my older members here at the credit union fall for. NEVER GIVE PERSONAL INFO OUT OVER THE PHONE OR VIA EMAIL. No legitimate business will ask for personal information like that.

There’s a darkness in watching yourself become invisible to the people who knew you best. You’re not at events, not in the photos, not in the group chats. You fade from their routines long before you fade from their thoughts. They stop asking, stop noticing, stop caring enough to reach out. They stoped thinking about you the moment your life slowed down and you could no longer keep up. Your reality keeps getting heavier every single day, and they move on as if your life isn’t failing apart. Suddenly you realize you have no one left to turn to when you need a friend the most.

@ThePOTSPostman I learned from almost 5 years of LC to share carefully, and that worked with online friends. Shared enough to take the edge off and kept the deepest and darkest to myself. In person? Some offers to help, but no one that will be around through it all. Except me, and my cats. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@ThePOTSPostman I've slowly told some of the "old life" friends, and got... meh. "Oh Kim has another thing 🙄" Sometimes the words were almost right, but the emotion wasn't there. It's been absolute hell for 2 months, and I was mostly alone with it. Not completely, but mostly.

@ThePOTSPostman Yep. One more diagnosis, 4 breakdowns in the past 3 weeks. Couldn't hold it together a second longer. Better now, but still screaming almost every day. Calm is ... elusive.

Anyone else just barely holding it together lately?

@elisa_comer @ThePOTSPostman None of the cancer team have ANY understanding of LC,POTS,MCAS, clots, NONE OF IT. Trying to have a discussion with them is like speaking a different language and they don't even want to understand. Which makes it so much harder when the above reality sinks in. 🫂

@elisa_comer @ThePOTSPostman Sending all the good thoughts, wishes, energy, prayers,blessings, etc. With an extra helping of universal healing energy. The one thing after the other is brutal. Tried to explain to oncologist today that I've been fighting to save my life for 4+ years already - I'm tired.

Everyone with chronic illness knows that moment. The moment when it finally sinks in that this isn’t temporary. This is your new life. And everything feels a little heavier after that.

It’s unbelievable. Trump pardoned people who tried to overturn the 2020 election last night, and by tonight the story has basically vanished. The press has already moved on. I’ll keep saying it: the media is failing this country at the exact moment we need accountability the most.

I will never, for the rest of my living days get on a plane without a respirator.

Chronic illness teaches you how to act. How to smile when your body is screaming. How to say “I’m okay” when you’re anything but. How to hide your pain so people don’t stare, worry, or even pity you. You learn to mask your symptoms because it’s easier to pretend you’re okay than to explain for the hundredth time that you’re not. You hide symptoms not to deceive people, but to protect yourself from being doubted. You get so good at masking that even you forget how bad it is sometimes. Then one quiet moment hits and you realize how much you’ve normalized just to seem functional.

4 days out from my life-changing surgery, @Aetna has denied the appeal for my brain surgery. to be clear, when i signed up to aetna months ago, the coordinator had confirmed they would cover this surgery. then, a week ago, they said the surgery was too experimental/elective and denied coverage. we appealed. that appeal was just denied today. now, my neurosurgeon is trying to do a peer-to-peer consult with someone at aetna to explain why i need it so we don’t lose the surgery date on monday morning. aetna is not being responsive. this is sadistic and a violation of basic trust. please spread this so they can’t ignore it. they may not care if i live or die but people should know just what kind of company they’re dealing with. and please pray they are able to have a peer-to-peer consult with my neurosurgeon and have a change of heart.

@jori_owl @lilleethaa I watched this about 50 times, very cathartic! It's also me irl, every single day.

@KimDuke @lilleethaa

i hate doctors so much you literally have to manipulate them into doing their jobs. i’ve found doctors take me seriously when i act like i am unintelligent and uninformed. they don’t like patients using medical terms. only they are allowed to know those words

@jori_owl @lilleethaa I had a heart murmur diagnosed when I was about 30. The second cardiologist I saw after getting long covid said "you don't have a heart murmur! I would bet anything on it" tests come back showing a heart murmur. 🙄 She also said covid only affected hearts during the infection. 🤦

@lilleethaa If you have a health condition that you've had for your entire life or most of your life, somehow you being knowledgeable makes you questionable. Me? Apparently it's sus for me to know what type of treatments work best for my eczema (the doctors don't say so but they act so.)

@MECFScomrade So while you may not have support in real life, which I am so sorry for and relate to, you definitely have support here. Hugs.

@MECFScomrade So far I've switched testing centers, had one visit with a surgeon and will not go back, looking for a new primary care because I'm too complicated for her and God forbid I'd be upset about having cancer on top of everything else. 🙄 My body is so tired of the constant anxiety.

How would you feel if a family member said they were going to come wake you up at a certain time, when you have severe ME and you just spent a week in the hospital where you hardly slept or ate? I’m not going to talk to my brother anymore after this. He did something similar at-