PharmD Student Music


Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones

Saturday, March 27, 2010

When they don't listen to you, what do you do?

Oh my fucking god I want to kill my girlfriend right now.

What do you think of when you hear these symptoms: eye pain, blurry peripheral vision (some of you have already figured it out), nausea, redness of the eye, and the big one: halos around lights?

These are all symptoms my girlfriend is experiencing right now. If you're thinking glaucoma right now, thank you. You have proven my point.

I know, she probably just needs a new prescription for the lenses she doesn't wear on a usual basis. But according to the pathophysiology class I'm forced to attend to learn about the causes of disease rather than the treatment of them (but that's a different post), all of those symptoms are completely classic for glaucoma.

If your girlfriend showed these signs and you didn't say anything, didn't make her go to the doctor, didn't try to help, and she wound up blind, how would you feel?

Now if you did show your concerns, showed her the evidence, showed her every possible thing you could to get her to go to the doctor, and she still didn't listen to you?

Exactly how would you feel?

Because I'm frustrated.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Last Monday

Last Monday I woke up to my alarm clock, and I instantly knew something was wrong. Normally when I wake up there’s a bright ray of just-risen sun shining through the edges of the Venetian blinds that cover the East-facing windows of my bedroom. Not on Monday though. No, my room was void of any bright light. However, a dull red light seeped through the cracks of the blinds.

I looked out my window to see what was the matter, and lo and behold, I saw what had become of this world. After passing health care reform, the now Socialist nation that was once the world’s only super-power had turned the world upside down. I should have known that allowing our government to levy taxes on its people to allow the less fortunate to purchase life-saving health insurance from private companies – the very definition of Socialism – would create the world I saw from my bedroom window.

What I saw was the beginning of The End. The Apocalypse had begun. The sky was blood red and had ripped open. I saw the Four Horsemen galloping through the sky, creating war, famine, death, and conquest in their wake. I should have known, for the very first sign that The Apocalypse was near would be the complete government take over of the freedoms of the American people.

I wept for my lost freedoms. I wept for my freedom to be booted from my health insurance the minute I contracted the HIV virus. I sobbed for my freedom to be denied coverage because my mother was so inconsiderate to let me be born with a cleft palate. I fell to my knees and shook, because I knew my freedom to file for bankruptcy because of health care expenses was no longer an option.

As I came to grips with the knowledge that the world was ending, all because some majority-elected officials decided they would like it if 32 million more people, people that could potentially vote for them in the future, were granted affordable access to one of the best health care systems in the world, I heard a ringing.

It was my cell phone, and the 7:15am alarm was ringing, telling me it was time to wake up for the day. The sun shone through the edges of my Venetian blinds straight into my eyes, and when I closed them against the harsh light of day the light still reached my retina, although stained red by my eyelids.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and smiled, knowing I had lost the freedom to be forced off my parents’ insurance plan for four more years.