None of this has been fair

Tried shaking off some rust with Rhenna and Aaron sketches. Don’t have to be good. Just gotta be SOMETHING. And it’s just about the ONLY thing done in months. Took fasting, resting/resetting in bed for 16 hours, and a once-a-month medicine to calm the churn enough to cover one sketchbook page. I’ve been trying this whole time, but I’ve been devastated by the worst of American healthcare.

It never occurred to me my pain management office would betray me like they did. I had verbal agreements from all parties over the reality of my case, the best approach, and how to right the ship. None of that mattered. I got passed to a second doc at the wrong time, allowing the regular doc (a QAnon fundie nutjob who became “my” guy after he ruined me so much with his constant errors no one else would see me - especially all context is lost when I’m handed off to someone else) to throw out years of evidence and attempt to gaslight me, with a threat he would falsify documents and harm me further if I kept calling the office and asking for emergency help! All evidence has him as the one in the wrong, but this is America. All he needs to do is falsify a doc, declare me difficult, and everyone will back him, for it’s far easier to kill off a patient when your office is overwhelmed (again: America, which put out punishing policy that only affects legitimate patients, cuz they’re hostages and you can declare victory if their numbers go down - especially if you drive them to suicide!) than purge a corrupt and incompetent doctor. I don’t have any hope of fixing this aside from Hail Mary procedures that will be out of pocket, and cost up to $10k.

While this happened, I also got screwed over by Medicaid/Medicare, because my disability was approved mid-December. Automatic processes triggered, like canceling my Medicaid, since I don’t need it anymore (they were not supposed to do that, btw) but notifications weren’t sent to me until mid-January. And my new Medicare didn’t cover medications. I was supposed to have a month warning to set up a proper plan. Cuz it can take a month to get your card. The result is I lost two months of healthcare. Medicaid, knowing it would end (again, wasn’t supposed to yet) ran out the clock on all requests in December. In January 1st, it wasn’t their problem anymore. They didn’t even need to send denials! They just ignored all confused requests! I had a procedure scheduled for January 3rd. Oops! My disability has been pending since April (or since before Covid, depending on your view) and I couldn’t file legal action to force them to follow through on it until January. At that point, I assumed it would happen. Nope. Most spiteful time! (I still have not received my disability backpay, which will go entirely to medical bills. I’m too tired to pick up that fight right now.)

I finally got my Medicare set up - a “Medicare Advantage” plan that sure looks like the uncovered parts of my treatment will be more than my monthly disability payment, so I’m still going backwards! - and I am finally getting my Botox injections on Friday. I think. I am worried from some paperwork I got that, cuz every insurance change assumes a patient has zero medical history, I’m getting a greatly reduced treatment. After two months of my body falling apart due to lack of treatment on two of my three pillars of survival. We’ll see.

Someone in my treatment network will need to step up and try fixing what was done to me, but the system is entirely stacked against me. I could be a person at any time, and soon return to artwork, which would be a bridge back to regular comics, provided I actually get my known treatment plan without interruption, but… America.

Now imagine my one outlet that keeps me in touch with the rest of the world - Twitter - gets bought by the face of everything wrong with capitalism, who actively makes it worse and worse, then creates a conspiracy theory instead of admit to gross incompetence - boy, am I familiar with that type - so every day I notice another person from my feed or replies has moved elsewhere. I’m not well enough to do a dang sketch most of the time! I can’t fight every injustice at once. I’m not abandoning anyone or any obligations. I just can’t do my part right now because the entire universe is conspiring against me. (D-does this mean everything wrong right now is my fault? Would the universe revert to something salvageable if I was gone? I hope not. Y’all gotta save the world yourselves. I’ll catch up once I get an opportunity.)