here's what you need to know about how the healthcare system "works"

i am out the medication that is required for me to stay alive. that's not an exagerration. barring spontaneous organ regeneration, if i don't get this medication i will eventually slip into a coma and have multiple organ failure.

now, when i ordered this medication, the pharmacy didn't tell me that it required info from my doctor to fill it this time.

the mail order pharmacy, chosen for ease of use ha ha ha, didn't tell me jack shit. i found out when i realized that it had been about 10 days since i placed my order and there were no meds.

when i questioned it, they deigned to tell me it required input from my doctor.

why they didn't get this info on their own, as they have done before, is a mystery.

call and email my doc. he rings me two days later at 7:00 pm on a friday. he has never heard from the pharmacy and blah blah complication-cakes, looks like he can't get the authorization through. in keeping with the themes of my life, the phone number i gave him didn't work.

so i contact the pharmacy again and ask, again, for contact info that my doc can use.

pharmacy responds that they have faxed him. "what?" i hear you ask. i don't know either.

(by this time, with all these delays, i am out of my medication? i'm not even gonna talk about how this wouldn't be a problem if there weren't idiotic refill date constraints. god forbid i get all of my mediation sooner than i immediately have to have it--wouldn't want that. )

so i email them both, again, and provide all the info i can and wait for monday.

monday comes. no response from anybody.

so, when you hear me talking about legalizing all drugs and making them available to the average joe, think on this situation before you decide i'm some kind of radical nutjob.

i can't get medicine that i've been ordering for years, medicine required to fucking live, because somebody dropped the ball and my pharmacy and doctor can't communicate.

i'd be furious if it wasn't so typical that i'd gotten used to it.

this is my life. i'm tired of explaining why it's less than inspiring. i try so hard to be aware and thankful. maybe one day the world will give me something to be thankful for, other than disaster aversion. i'm not holding out much hope at this point.