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Personal: I'm taking a few minutes to write this in case it helps someone to read it. I know many of you can relate to the extreme frustrations that come with helping friends and family navigate our badly broken health care system. Today was a very bad day for that for me. Only the tip of a very large iceberg, for example, a recurring nightmare, trying to get a prescription filled for somebody. The doctor doesn't respond to the pharmacy refill request for days--sometimes, never. Patient is in insatiable pain, waiting. You call the doctor's office and, if you have one that answers the phone at some point, they nonchalantly tell you they don't know if they'll get around to calling the pharmacy today. Maybe tomorrow. They're unconcerned. You explain a grown man who never cries is in tears from pain, and they let a prescription that's helped him some for 20 years run out. They say they have no control over whether somebody will get around to calling in the prescription that day, after days of no response. You try to appeal to their humanity and common sense. They say they can't help. Maybe somebody calls it in at the end of the day; maybe not. "How will I know?" I ask, knowing the patient is counting the minutes. "Well, the pharmacy will call you if we do." You ask for a favor: please call to let me know if you do call in the prescription because the pharmacy doesn't always call and we would want to get there before it closes. "No can do" is the answer. Nobody is willing to spend the 60 seconds it would take to just Pick. Up. The. Phone. And. Call. The. Darn. Pharmacy. Next, you call the pharmacy hoping they can provide just one of the pills that the person has taken for 20 yrs, to get through the night until the doctor calls, since he's having an attack of this nerve pain. It's not a weird oxycontin or addictive or highly controlled product. "No can do," says the pharmacy. "We have to hear from the doctor. We'd like to but we might get in trouble." "Can you please call the doctor now?" I ask. "We've already have a request in for days," they reply. "We can't do anything more. Does that make sense?" I say, "It doesn't make sense. But I understand what you're telling me." Today, we're not treated like people paying to have experts help us access good medical care. We're treated with a weird paternalistic attitude, like children, and our parents are uncaring. "We're in charge," they convey. "We'll tell you what you can get and when. Stop complaining. Or maybe we'll make it harder on you." Of course there are bigger examples and much, much more happened today, but I know this is one experience many suffer daily. But I'm not writing because of that. I wanted to stop and think of the things that went right today, because it's easy to let these frustrations overtake. 🍀 For me? I have a lot of ill friends and family *but* I thought of all those who are not ill. So glad that so many people I know are actually enjoying good health. I'm lucky that I'm healthy! Insurance is a mess, as you all know, but it is currently a necessity and I'm 🍀lucky to have a good job that provides great insurance! I work MANY hours but it's the job that gives me the insurance and the ability to help others who are counting on me, and I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. I'm lucky. 🍀 I also LOVE my job, and it's a welcome diversion on days like this. 🍀Not everybody has a job they love to do for decades! I also am so happy to have my TaeKwonDo to center me and get my mind off frustrations. I test for my sixth degree BlackBelt in November and the challenge of training for it has been really good for me in many ways.🍀 I have great friends and family members that I get to see and share a lot of laughs 🍀with all the time. I have my fitness center buddies: newer friends since I moved south, but what a great group of people. Lucky there, too! 🍀 And today I did reach a doctor who had treated the patient previously and wasn't really in the mix on this prescription or problem, but agreed to make a call and try to help. He's awesome, and human, and uses common sense. Why aren't more like that? I don't know, but I'm lucky 🍀to have found at least one! That was good. Finally, at the end of a busy day, I am staying in a hotel, and the front desk dude couldn't have been sweeter. That doesn't happen every day! 🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀 It may not always feel like it, but more goes right than wrong, I think. If you are suffering any of life's frustrations, know you aren't alone!