‘EAT THE RICH’ BANDANA LAUNCH
There’s an old saying: “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” It sure feels like a poignant sentiment at the moment…
Hey Sugars!
I hope you’ll indulge me a little story about why I created this ‘Eat the Rich’ bandana…
I suffer from debilitating migraine. It’s not even so much about the pain. See, the type I get, hemiplegic migraine, quite literally robs me of wits. It will strike out of nowhere, and I will just become completely disoriented. Big chunks of my vision will disappear, parts of my body will go numb or slack, my face will droop, I grope for words that never come, and I might not even remember my partner’s name if he’s standing in front of me. It’s terrifying.
Thankfully, I have this med I take daily that makes a huge difference. It reduces my daily headaches significantly, and takes those neurological attacks down to just a few every couple of months. It gives me my life back.
But here’s the thing. It costs THOUSANDS of dollars a month. While I am privileged enough to have insurance, a corporate savings card from the manufacturer (that you can only get if you have insurance. Make that make sense), and the means to pick it up every month, I still run into barriers to care. See, my insurance company denies it every single month. Without fail, refill time is fraught with stress. I have to spend several days ordering the med, calling the pharmacy, going to the pharmacy, calling my insurance and doctor, and basically begging anyone along the chain to help me. While I do this dance, I end up missing days of my medication. During this unmedicated period, I feel myself slip back into the foggy darkness the symptoms bring, reminding me of how little of a life I have without it.
We’re all profoundly impacted by corporate greed and the corruption in the highest levels of our country. But this is the issue that brings it home for me. The fact that some person at a desk in an insurance office—or probably an automated AI program at this point—has more power over our care than our doctors. Insurance companies reduce living, breathing Americans down to bottom lines, and I wonder how much longer we can continue going on this way, tolerating the dehumanization, the heartlessness.
We all have our reasons to be fed up with the greed that rules our daily life. I believe, though, we are waking up finally. It’s time to take the power back.
Eat. The. Rich.
XOXOXO,
Val ❤️
