Meds & Music

I'm FINALLY back on my meds. Today....just this afternoon. Yes, it took that long. For teachers in Hawaii...well, first of all, Hawaii has only one school district - for the entire state. This actually doesn't sound like a bad idea, but in the real world it's horrible. The state DOE is incompetent and it seems, petty and corrupt. So, one district, one teacher's union. Which is just as incompetent, petty and corrupt. Charter school teachers are forced to be in this union, which is ironic because they take our dues and lobby against charter schools. Pretty cool, huh?

But wait, that's not all. A few years ago, the union figured it wasn't ripping off enough money, so they somehow got the DOE (or whomever) to let it take over providing health insurance for teachers. The union provides the health care. For progressives, this sounds like a dream come true. But for the actual teachers, it's a nightmare. The union keeps telling me I have health insurance (and charging me for it) but I don't come up on the HMO's records. So after a couple of weeks of phone merry-go-round, I finally got in to see a doctor today. The doctor had never heard of one of the meds I'm on and Kaiser (my HMO) doesn't carry it. So they have me on another one that is similar with the same side effects. That's a...relief?

I now have this dilemma. I just happened to get this one doctor, that's who was available and I needed to get in immediately. I didn't want to tell anyone about this, but it was getting pretty bad. I was having constant headaches and I cut myself on the back of the neck and I started bleeding as if I was just stabbed. I never bled so much in my life. Anyway, I really needed to get my blood pressure down.

So I got this doctor, now and the problem is that she's really cute. I'm mature enough to handle it, I guess... And I could switch to one of the other two at the clinic if I wanted to, but...I just don't want to end up pulling a Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack: "Ooh, my arm...it's broken..."

OK, three hours until I'm on the air at Mana'o.