You know that feeling when you wake up and you already know something is wrong? You feel like crap, maybe coughing, maybe fever, maybe just heavy and sick. So you call work, take a sick day, and you stay in bed with tea, tissues, some medicine. You rest, you sweat, you wait. After a week you’re better, and life goes back to normal.
But what happens when it doesn’t?
What happens when your body doesn’t get better? 🤔When it feels like your body is shutting down, but you don’t even know why? You go to the doctor, they run some tests, and still nothing. So you do more tests. CT, MRI, blood, whatever. Weeks pass, sometimes months, and still no clear answers. You’re tired, scared, waiting.
And then suddenly…boom…you get the news: you have a chronic illness.
And that word… chronic. It means it’s not leaving. It means this is forever.
At first, you think: okay, I will fight it. First year, maybe two years, you start researching, testing medications, trying to find the one that helps you. Some drugs work a bit, some not at all. Side effects hit. You keep adjusting, keep trying, keep hoping.
And honestly…it’s only possible for me because I live in a country where I have health insurance. That’s the only reason I can afford all these tests and all these medications. I don’t pay thousands out of pocket. In Austria, my medicine costs me like 7 dollars ( yes, prescription). In the USA, the same thing costs around 7,000 dollars. Yes, seven thousand.
How the hell can people afford that?! 😒
I have talked to people from different countries in my support group, and so many of them cannot afford the proper medication. They try the cheaper ones, but those don’t help enough. They stay sick because they don’t have the money to even test other options. I myself tried so many different treatments, and if I had to pay the real price, it would be more than 20,000 dollars already. Who can pay that? Almost nobody. And yet, somehow, people are forced to make these impossible choices. 😡
And it’s not just the medicine. What about yearly check-ups? MRI, CT, colonoscopy, blood work. All these things are expensive. I can do them because my healthcare covers it. But what about the people who can’t? They don’t know how their disease is developing because they can’t afford to check. That’s terrifying.
Why is it like this? Why is it so hard for countries to offer free healthcare? Why does it depend on where you are born? Why does someone like me get medicine for 7 dollars (prescription) while someone else pays 7,000 or goes without? Families with two or three people with chronic illnesses? How the hell are they supposed to survive if every pill, every doctor visit, every scan costs a fortune? 😔
And then there’s work. Employers don’t want sick people. If they know you will often be on sick leave, they won’t hire you. They prefer healthy workers. So now you’re sick, jobless, and stuck. If I lose my job, I still have free healthcare. But in other countries? No job…no health insurance…no treatment = no life.
So again I ask…why the hell is free healthcare not available everywhere? Is it politics? Is it money? Do countries actually profit more when people suffer and pay insane amounts for treatment? Or is it just that no one cares enough to change it?
All I know is that I am lucky. But when I read stories in my group about people who cannot afford their medicine, people who just suffer in silence, I feel angry and sad. My heart breaks because it’s so unfair. 😔
People deserve care. Free, equal care. Not only the rich, not only the lucky ones in the “right” country. Everyone.
So tell me, why is it so hard? Why can’t every country give free healthcare to their people? Whose fault is this? Ours? The government? The system? I really don’t know.
But I know one thing! It shouldn’t be this way.
“Promise me you’ll always remember: you’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” - A.A. Milne
With love, @tinabrezpike ❤️