Crohn's Disease

So it turns out a pretty close friend of mine has Crohn's Disease and is about to go off of his parents health insurance. He is worried, though it looks like he is going to be able to get on Cobra until he gets on some other health insurance in about three or four months.

It was really nice to sit down and talk to someone else about what it is like to have that illness. We had very similar experiences, lots of pain durning our first flare up and then lots of remission during the next few years. We were both diagnosed in 2006. We talked about how we both feel like we aren't even sure that we have Crohn's Disease, as our lives have been relatively unaffected since our first flare-ups.

I've been thinking a lot about eugenics recently. Obviously, it is not something I endorse. The Nazi's used eugenics as an excuse to euthanize mentally ill patients and the Jewish people and homosexuals and gypsies, claiming they were perfect the gene pool. I feel like in a lot of ways, the health system in the United States was a form of modern day eugenics. By stamping millions of people with chronic illnesses, you are telling them they are flawed in some way. Then, you have to join the labor force. If you were a jobless person with a chronic illness, there was no way for you to get help (until recently). So according to our government and society, if you were chronically ill and weren't valuable enough for a business to give you health insurance, you were kicked to the curb.

I still have a deep seated worry that something like what happened in Germany could happen in the United States. With Schizoaffective, Crohn's, and sciatica, I'd probably get rounded up and taken out to pasture, no matter how blue these eyes are. It's a weird thought and kind of scary, but it is something I think about sometimes. No doubt drug companies are very happy that there are so many people with illnesses that never get cured. Just like with what Chris Rock said about AIDS and why they will never find a cure, the money is in the medicine.

Had an improv show tonight. It went pretty well. Need to sleep. WORK. Bleh. Someday I wont have to do this shit anymore, but for now, could be worse.