​The letter Q is odd.  My opinion.  Q has no symmetry, no artistry, no rationale, and in English very little reason for being.  If Q were alive, aware of its appearance and its unpopularity, it might shiver in shame.  So: wouldn’t Q’s dilemma be a great entry for the category of children’s books and stories about characters who wish they were someone else?  No way.  That category is entirely too overpopulated and hackneyed.
    Unless.  Our friends the alphabet letters have histories of their own – and sometimes histories make good stories.  The short-short tale “Why the Letter Q Has a Slanted Tail” is maybe dizzier than many I-despise-myself stories, but it also asks the question “Was I always a loser or did something change?”  This is a logical query for those who, like the letter Q, believe they used to be acceptable.  In Q’s case, the changes were real but neutral.  Mean-spirited “friends” convinced Q the alterations were bad.   

     ​OK, this post is not about writing.  It’s about health care.  I’m giving away my age here, but the fact is I’ll be going on Medicare on April 1, 2017.  I can hardly wait.  It’s one of the perks of getting older.
     For the past several years, I’ve purchased an individual health insurance policy through the ACA Marketplace.  (Actually, in December of 2013 I bought directly from an insurance company because the ACA website failed, but the policy was the same.)  My husband Tom is already on Medicare for medical insurance and prescriptions.  He also has a supplementary policy to pick up costs not covered by Medicare.  Tom’s premiums for these policies are so reasonable they make me laugh.
    My individual policies, in contrast, have had high premiums, high deductibles, lots of co-pays, and big co-insurance.  Apparently I got spoiled during all the decades that our insurance through Tom’s employer covered us.  We got the care we needed at prices we could afford.  True, the costs rose most years, but only annoyingly, not rapaciously.  Not so with my individual policies, which are blindingly expensive.
     Under the Affordable Care Act, many people with low incomes receive significant government subsidies.  This makes sense, and I personally know people who would have no health insurance without those subsidies.  In my own case, I don’t qualify for a subsidy, which of course means that Tom and I are not even close to impoverished, for which I am grateful.
     Nonetheless, during each of the four ACA open-enrollment periods, I’ve been shocked and discouraged by the steep and steeply increasing policy prices.  The high premiums are a monthly hit, but the worst element is the annual deductible of multiple thousands of dollars.  Because I have pre-existing conditions and a propensity for certain illnesses and injuries, I can’t forego medical care and remain healthy and functional.  So I go to doctors.  I pay the full costs of all visits, tests, and prescriptions, till the deductible is met, which usually happens around May.  After that, everything is “free,” so I try to postpone the more expensive services till later in the year.
     Now it’s 2017.  I have the highest premiums and deductible and co-pays and co-insurance ever.  But in three months, when I start Medicare, costs will plummet and I can unshackle myself from my exorbitantly priced ACA policy. 
     So what to do till then?  I’ve decided to avoid all non-essential medical care till April 1.  Yes, if I acquire a bacterial infection I’ll go to the urgent-care nurse and get antibiotics.  If I get hit by a truck I’ll ride the ambulance to the ER.  But I won’t go to the orthopedic doctor to find out why my ankle seems to be degenerating.  I won’t visit a wholistic medical practice that might help me control my GERD with dietary changes.  I won’t seek a replacement for my osteopenia med, which causes additional reflux and bone pain and which I have simply quit taking.  These things will have to wait.
     Of course I realize that people with no medical insurance don’t seek such services anyway.  They do without diagnoses and treatments nearly all the time.  They remain sick or injured longer than I do.  I know this.  The one advantage of declining to use my medical insurance for the next three months – except for emergencies – is that I may gain a tiny bit of insight into what it’s like not to have insurance.  That’s probably worth my walking around on a chronically unstable ankle for awhile.
     Not all countries have this problem.  The U.S., contrary to popular belief, does not have the best health-care system on earth, nor the least expensive.  Most European countries, several Middle Eastern countries, Japan, and other nations rank higher.  Here are links to three fairly-short, recent articles comparing health systems in a variety of countries.  Recognizing that many of them have smaller populations than the U.S., or a narrower range of income levels, there may still be lessons to learn from how they manage the care of their people:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/u-s-health-care-system-ranks-as-one-of-the-least-efficient
 
http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/
 
http://gazettereview.com/2016/04/countries-with-the-best-health-care/

     To be sure, I am thankful to have health insurance at all.  I can get routine care, specialist care, urgent care, emergency care, tests, prescriptions.  I’ve visited places in the world where a single aspirin is a luxury, where sick people sit beside dirt roads staring at nothing, where parents fail to treat their child’s bleeding head wound because they don’t realize they can help.  My situation is the opposite of that, and in comparison my gripes seem silly.
     But I live where I live, and I believe that in a nation as rich and resourceful as the U.S. our health insurance should be better.  I hope as the new Congress debates the ACA and possible changes or replacements, they will try to learn from other countries and not think they have all the answers.  Everyone in the United States should have health insurance, and everyone should be able to afford it.

     When my brother Paul was six or seven, he had a pet goldfish.  Fishie lived in a rather small, glass fishbowl, atop the dresser in Paul’s bedroom.  (In the ‘50s and ‘60s, bowls were acceptable fish housing.) 
     One day, under mysterious circumstances, the fishbowl got knocked clear off the dresser and onto the floor.  It shattered, and water flew everywhere.  Paul yelled for our mom, who ran to help him.  They both knew Fishie must be dead among the shards, or at best flopping her last flops.  Paul was already mourning his lost pet
     Suddenly they spotted Fishie, breathing calmly in a teeny pool of water within a four-inch-wide, intact, curved section of the glass – an astonishingly big remnant for a smashed fishbowl.  How Fishie landed inside that curved piece, rather than among the thousand glass slivers or under the bed, is one of the great unanswered questions of life.
     By the time Fishie died for real, she was four years old, a record in our family’s history of owning short-lived goldfish.
      The poem “Valentine’s Day” is based on this true-life episode, with alterations (e.g., Paul’s fish was not red with a white heart-shaped spot on her head, and the accident had nothing to do with Dad’s hammering). 
      I wrote the poem less to enshrine Fishie than to recall Paul’s anguish at fearing his pet deceased.  Children love their animals, regardless of species: dogs and cats, gerbils, horses, lizards, sheep, parakeets, guppies, probably even bugs.  Maybe in Paul’s mind, Fishie had a heart-shaped spot on her head after all.
            

     Some people think I made up The Slithering Mist.  Yes, I wrote the text and created the title and the tumblers and the cubby.  I asked Tina Modugno to illustrate the book (which she did, beautifully).  But I didn’t fully invent the story, because it was already real. 
​     It came to life in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina wrecked the levees in New Orleans and wiped out much of the city and neighboring areas.  The first draft of The Slithering Mist described that tragedy and its aftermath.  Other natural disasters followed, nationwide and worldwide: wildfires, tornadoes, mudslides, tsunamis, earthquakes, new hurricanes, new floods.  Most recently, here in East Tennessee, forest fires ravaged the Smoky Mountain town of Gatlinburg.
     In every natural calamity, children end up homeless and afraid.  Emergency aid pours in, of course.  Families, neighborhoods, and towns scramble to survive and recover, aided by helpers near and far.  The wrenching emotional toll usually gets tackled head-on.  Eventually life inches forward again, at least for those who haven’t lost people they love.
     But children still fear.  If they’ve not experienced disaster, they wonder: Could it happen?  If they’re immersed in disaster, they wonder: How long will it last?  Will their family be safe?  Will they have food, a bed?  Will they, the children, be alone? 
     The Slithering Mist, a picture book fantasy, asks these kinds of questions, because they’re the questions children ask.  The book is meant to reassure kids that the effects of such catastrophes do not last forever.
     In hopes of soothing the fears of someone somewhere, I’ve occasionally mailed copies of The Slithering Mist to schools, emergency shelters, and organizations that serve traumatized children.  I have no idea if any of the recipients has even read the book, let alone found it useful.  Donating books without prior arrangement is like flinging a worm up in the air and hoping a migrating bird will gulp it down midflight.
     But the next natural disaster will come, sooner or later.  Whatever forms it takes, children will suffer.  Children will be afraid.  Children will need to know they’re not alone.  So I’ll mail out more copies of The Slithering Mist, in case one of those children might feel better after reading it.