Saturday, September 11, 2004

Drugs, Depression and Dance

It's D-Day: drugs, depression and dance. In that order.

Drugs. My husband got laid off last week. His company is opening an office in Gatwick, England and hiring someone there to do his job. I don't know exactly where Gatwick is, and right now I don't think I want to find out. Losing your job means losing your insurance. It's the American way. Losing your insurance is bad for anyone, but really bad if, like me, you have a chronic illness that requires you to take a lot of medication. I have Lupus, and I take more drugs everyday than some people take in a year. (That's depressing in and of itself.) But without insurance, the costs are really high, so today I got on the net and looked up the new Medicare prescription program to see if I could get the costs pared down. Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is I can cut the cost of my drugs. The bad news is that after doing that, they will still run me over $900 per month. Yes, you heard me. Over $900 every month to take the medicine I need. That leads to ...

Depression. I have just felt like crap all day. What's the point, I keep thinking. Even if we scrape up the money to buy a COBRA package until Michael finds a new job (COBRA's only going to run $663 per month), the reality is that someday he will retire and we won't have insurance and I won't be able to afford my drugs. Does that mean you get to retirement and just have to die? Seems like it. We are 9 years away from his retirement, so I'm presuming the $900+ per month for me, plus whatever his medical needs will be, is going to be inflated, but even if it wasn't, let's just say the first $1000 every month of our retirement income is going to go to medication? I'm sorry folks, but we just aren't going to retire well enough off cover that and still maintain a decent lifestyle. I'm seeing a future I don't like. But, I have a subscription to the Houston Ballet that's already been paid for, so I went to that tonight with my lovely daughter, Alix, and that leads to ...

Dance. Three wonderful performances. The first an odd little piece about a misplaced bird titled "The Accidental." Evocative, poignant, quiet. The second an intense examination of board room politics called "The Host" that featured men in suits, something you don't see a lot of on stage at the ballet. Excellently done and very provocative. The final one, by Lila York, was "Celts." Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. I loved it. After the first minute, I started feeling bad because I knew it was going to end. This dance was set a year before Riverdance came out, think Riverdance en pointe and more complex. Frankly, I think someone at Riverdance saw Lila's work and copied, but I have no proof. It was riveting, enthralling, amazing and athletic. I really love the ballet.

Drugs, Depression and Dance. Three authentic issues for today. And sometime late this evening, I remembered that it was September 11 and maybe I felt bad just because it is the anniversary of a tragedy that remains unbelievable even though I saw it happen (on TV) and then saw it happen over and over and over again. I guess we've all seen it happen in replay so many times that we can never forget it, even when we think we have.

I'm usually an upbeat person. Tomorrow I'll probably be chipper again. A lot of good stuff has happened this week that I'd like to write about. Tomorrow would be a better day for that, though. Tonight, I'm just thankful for the dancers who gave me a blessing at the end of this sad day with their joyous work on stage.

2 comments:

Nevadan said...

Lane, You are in my prayers. You sound like a grat woman. Keep up the good blog work.

Nevadan said...

Great woman, that is.