I can't breathe!

My lungs are practically useless. Without a series of drugs inhaled into my body on a regular basis they would cease to operate and I would suffocate to death.

And I bet you've been taking your ability to breathe for granted, haven't you? For shame.

I've lived life as an asthmatic since I was four years old; I can't even remember what life was like before I had to depend on medication to keep me alive. When I was younger health insurance was a "just in case" for my condition. Medications were not super cheap, but they were reasonable. My parents kept the insurance around just in case I had to spend some time in the hospital.

But now that I am older, and my lungs are not what they once were, and the newer and better medications I need are so damned costly, insurance is no longer just that. Here is where my problem comes in. I've been without health insurance for the last two months. Over that period I was very careful to conserve my resources until my new coverage went into effect, and I have been doing great until this week. I fell a week short of my medication, my three hundred and fifty dollars a month without insurance medication, my sell my internal organs on the black market so I can afford it medication, my can't live with out but can't afford to live with medication.

So there I was sitting with my very last dose of "save my fucking life" Advair in my hands wondering how in the hell I can possibly last a whole week with just this one tiny dose. I'm barely breathing as it is, to make it last this long I had to skip a dose every other day, and then skip two doses. I've got enough medication in my body to keep my lungs barely working, but God forbid I have to do something like walk up a flight of stairs. Chances are, my lungs will stop.

And crap, I almost forgot I have to move out of my apartment tonight. If that doesn't kill me with the physical state I am in, I don't know what will.

Obviously, I came to the conclusion that I would have to buckle down and pay full price for the medication, but first I would have to get to a doctor and get a prescription (which is extra cost). So I decided to call my aunt because my cousin also uses Advair. I had high hopes that maybe, just maybe, they could lend me a weeks worth of medication until I could use my insurance to buy the "save my fucking life" Advair. But guess what? They have switched insurance to what I can only conclude to be the worlds worst health care coverage and now they too can't afford to pay the outrages two hundred dollar premium. This means my cousin, as well, will soon be without this very vital medication once she has used up her almost empty reserves.

How in the hell does an insurance company tell you, "Sorry, we know you need this stuff to survive, but we are still going to charge you out the ass for it." Hey Mr. President, don't you see something wrong with this? Of course you don't, you are too busy bombing other countries to notice what's happening right here on the home front.

I don't remember when our health care system failed us so terribly, but it has.

Ultimately, I have no other options. No other medication works as well as Advair. No other medication comes even close to providing me with the security of knowing that when I wake up in the morning I will STILL BE BREATHING! So, I have no other choice than to pay the two-hundred dollar premium, but at least I save one-hundred and fifty bucks and the cost of a doctor visit by using my cousins prescription and insurance. Isn't that illegal? What are they gonna do? Throw me in jail for trying to breathe?

And to think, if only I could make it one more week It would only cost me a twenty dollar doctor visit and maybe thirty bucks on the prescription. That is just my luck.