Poor people don't deserve healthcare

Having grown up in England in the 90s, I had certain expectations from life. It was a given that my parents took me to the doctor and the dentist, and did not pay for these services. These were essentials, not luxuries. They seemed to me to be part and parcel of our Human Rights.

 What a shock then, to discover that this was not so in other places. When we moved abroad, I was exposed to a much crueler world. With the rising popularity of the internet in my late teenage years, I got to learn that in fact, many governments do not take care of their people. If you can't pay, you don't get treated.

What kind of b******t is that?

This struck me particularly hard when I spent around 9 months off work due to my endometriosis (for which there is no cure, by the way). I filled in extra forms to get doctors bills paid for, and was given an allowance that would cover 1 visit a month. I was actually seeing a doctor twice a week at one point.

That there are people out there who don't support free healthcare shocks me most of all. Do these people think they are immune from all of life's illnesses and accidents, waiting around the corner?

Despite being born disabled, when I was first signed off work I was in the best shape of my life. I was exercising 5 times a week, eating my greens, making my own smoothies. I was determined to make the most of my body.

It didn't stop something bad from growing inside me. No amount of green juice and vitamins guarantees health.

Should you ever have the opportunity to vote in free healthcare where you live, have a good long think about it, and vote yes.

Lisa

The Kodak whisperer

I am a great lover of technology. That might sound a little dodgy, but I don't mean like THAT. Well, only if it's a very attractive laptop...Anyways! I am a great believer that you should treat your machines with love and care, and respect. Otherwise, they will hold grudges against you, and generally wreak havoc on your life.

I have always been a little...eccentric shall we say, in this manner. I am the kind or person that thanks elevators and vending machines. That way, when the machines rise up against us, I will still have a few on my side, ready to take me up and down and give me snacks for an extortionate price.

Watching people mistreat machines causes me the kind of pain that I imagine most people reserve for small, injured children. I watch my mother pick up her laptop by the screen and I wail inside.

And so I did not expect my trusty, ancient Kodak all in one machine to turn against me. It has been my faithful companion for near a decade, printing, scanning, copying, truly a marvel of the modern age. Plus I got it free, as compensation for an ex-boyfriend running off with someone else and leaving this expensive bit of kit behind.

 It had been working perfectly, and now all it would say to me was could not scan, press ok to continue. No, not ok! I need you to scan! I have insurance claims to sort out! I have no end of doctor's invoices to submit! (31 in the last 12 months).

I searched high and low on the internet until I found an unlikely fix. It advised opening a paint program and telling the scanner to scan from there...make sense? Well reader, that is what I did, and, mercifully, it worked.

Still no idea as to why my scanner has decided to play hardball. Now I have to find some way to appease it...

Right in the Balls

What I have noticed (and many others before me) is that life is very unfair. It doesn't hesitate to kick you in whatever sensitive areas you might have, and it will kick you repeatedly. All you can do, is stagger back to your feet, and try to brace against the next blow.

So there I am at 29. My body is something like a well-oiled machine. I've been working it hard, pushing on against arthritis, shouting it down with, "You shall not pass" gusto. I had decided that if I ate well, and exercised enough, I would keep everything ticking over indefinitely.

Mostly I was happy with my body. I was miffed at the grinding and clicking and the aches and pains, and the limping, but I wore cute dresses, and I was a UK size 10, which I considered to be the ideal size, and I had great hair.

And then I started to get these other weird pains. Stomach pains.

I cut down on the gluten, ate more fruit, and thought that would be the end of it. But the pains didn't go away. So quite a while later, I went to see a specialist. He decided it was probably just constipation, just me some stuff, and sent me on my way.

The pains started to go away a bit. I ate less and less. I exercised more. I thought no more about it.

At the end of November 2015, I collapsed at work and was taken to hospital in an ambulance. And it just got worse from there.