Five things I have learned

Today’s prompt is: Five things I have learned – write about the five things you have learned about yourself, or RA. Perhaps you have learned what things like physical pain, injections, or morning fatigue are like? Perhaps you have learned new things about yourself?

Five things I have learned:

1. Insurance companies create many jobs

There is a misconception that insurance companies are there to help. The companies themselves sell their products to employers and individuals with the premise that they will help the insured. I have sat in many meetings where the insurance plan salespeople tell me about how much better employees who work with me will be if I buy their plan. This is nonsense.

RA has taught me that insurance companies exist to create employment opportunities for people who need their services. Let’s not get confused there is no pay involved, and career advancement is not available. None the less they must exist to give me a job. Because I seem to have one, my job is to be frustrated. I have often been the employee of the month.

2. Moving slow has advantages

I wrote an item titled the view from behind. Since I wrote that item, I have been thinking of all the advantages of walking behind, like:

I am no longer required to know where I am going, (I never did anyway)

I can concentrate more on the activity when we arrive, because getting there is not half the fun (or really any fun).

Walking slowly allows me to see the hazards long before I get to them.

But the best thing about the view from behind, is still walking behind my wife, oh yeah can’t beat that view ever.

3. I now anticipate the brown truck

As a boy I loved it when trucks would bring things to our house. The new couch, the long awaited new toy I got from the cereal box tops, anything really. I used to love trucks bringing things to my house.

I lost that sense of wonder along the way. But now it is back. Like the child I was I now sit around anticipating and wondering, are my supplies coming today? When will the truck be here? I watch for the brown UPS, the white FedEx truck or the mail truck and I rush to see if my item is on the truck. It is like being 6 years old again. Thank you supply companies you gave me back a sense of boyhood wonder.

4. Who knew the infusion nurse would be friend?

I have this terrific infusion nurse. She helps me navigate the thicket of scheduling, drug certifications and doctor approvals. She is a gem of a person and I really like her. She makes my life easier.

But the lesson I have learned is that maybe I need to seek out others to make friends with? Would it be a good thing to know the scheduler at the colonoscopy center? Might he be able to spot early morning openings in the schedule two years in advance and get me in with that special code to hold the place on the schedule? Maybe I need to get to know a radiologist nurse, just in case?

After you have seen those amazing people in action, it makes me want to find a similar person in every office in the hospital. I bet if I just showed up and hung around I could get to know these people? I would just nee dot avoid arrest..ah details.

5. Good friends

I have found many people who have become dear friends in the various online communities. People I never would have known if we had not been brought together by RA or Diabetes. The most important thing I have learned is that we are not alone and that each person’s story is amazing.

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