I want healthcare not health insurance. Insurance is me betting on whether I’ll get sick/injured or not and need to use it. At its core, Insurance is a hedge against uncertain loss. The problem is with health there will always be loss. We are all guaranteed to require medical assistance at some point in our lives. Unlike car or home insurance where there is always the possibility that we will not need to get a payout because we may never have a car wreck or have damage done to our homes. Your personal health is not something anyone should be betting against.

People shouldn’t be forced to purchase health insurance from private entities, but we should provide health care for those who need it. Having people go broke, and lose everything because they didn’t see cancer coming is not only sad but cruel as well. I absolutely see a need for single payer health care. I would gladly pay slightly more in taxes to make sure others are never forced to choose between the rent and the doctors. I’ve been there and it’s a horrible place to be.

When I was first diagnosed with Graves` Disease I did not have health insurance. Mark was working but his employer did not provide dependent insurance for their employees. I was too sick to work and we couldn’t afford to buy insurance. Because it was prior to the affordable care act, I also couldn’t qualify for medical assistance. We racked up quite a debt in medical bills and eventually had to file for bankruptcy because we just could not handle the debt. That was just over seven years ago and we are just now starting to get our credit back on track. In our early & mid-forties.

Single payer healthcare would prevent this exact same type of scenario from occurring for many others. I definitely don’t believe we should get rid of private insurance all together but I do believe we need to make sure that it’s not the only way one can get health care.

So my diet change is going rather well, I’ve been at it for almost 4 weeks now and I’ve lost 10lbs. I’m really enjoying finding better ways to eat and experimenting with new things. Don’t get me wrong there have been a few folly’s though. I bought these so called chewy cereal bars, and yes they were chewy but damn they tasted like sawdust. I also tried these veggie crunchers and YUCK!! That said though I have found a ton of good stuff. I’m really enjoying having more fruits in my diet, I put strawberry’s on or in anything I can and I eat more banana’s as well as apple’s. Things are going pretty well and so far I’m very happy with my decisions, I’ll post more on this later as I progress… 🙂

So We were able to file our taxes on the 31st of January hopefully it won’t take too long to get them back. Last June when we had to leave washington due to the hubby being long term unemployed we came to Ohio and have been staying with my folks since. Since he finally found work we’re planing on using the tax’s to get out into our own place. We’re both thrilled by this. We’re hoping to find a 2 or 3 bedroom house, I personally am sick to death of apartments and all the neighbors that come with them. Since I moved out when I was 17 yrs old all I have done is live in apartments and I want to be able to not have to worry about making too much noise for just once….lol.

I went to physical therapy yesterday and he worked me hard..lol. I did 10 minutes each on two different types of recumbent trainer. The second one provided more of a rotation to get my hips stretched.

Well today I went to the dentist office but that’s not my big news my big news is that the room the doctor had me in was all the way in the back of the office and afterwards, without help, or stopping I WALKED all the way from the back room outside and across the parking lot to where my mom was waiting and got into the car with little pain. This is a big improvement for me and I’m so grateful I was able to do it!

So I never did go see an endocrinologist, the doctors office never got back to on the referral and to be honest I didn’t push it because I well I wasn’t that interested in hearing what they would have to say. I DO NOT want to have my thyroid gotten rid of.

I’m excited, I just discovered an organic store that will deliver fresh fruits and vegetables right to my front door 🙂

http://www.greenbeandelivery.com/cincinnati/

I’m definitely going to be checking them out.

So yesterday I believe I did pretty well. Here’s what I ate yesterday:

• Breakfast
• granola bar
• banana
• plain organic oatmeal with real blueberries
• Lunch
• Vanilla Yogurt with real strawberries (this was really good and satisfied my sweet tooth as well)
• Dinner
• Greek chicken salad on romaine lettuce
• baked apples with cinnamon for desert

The beauty of this new lifestyle is I can eat a lot of food if I’m that hungry & there is no guilt involved because all the food I’m eating is all natural and healthy for me. the secret to remember is that your intake of fruits and vegetables should be higher than your intake of dairy, meats and grains. But you don’t have to cut those out completely. I have however cut out adding extra salt as well as extra sugars. I of course have cut out processed foods which means no takeout (say goodbye to pizza and takeout). But that’s ok because I’m worth it and want to be healthy!

Lately I have become increasingly concerned with my own health, as such I have decided that I need to rethink the way I approach food. So, with much thanks to my husband Mark, I have begun to eat more High nutrient foods. More fruits and more vegetables, meat & dairy are not off the menu however I will be eating less of them and more of the other items. I’m also working on weaning myself from my (what I like to call) mountain dew i.v. drip.