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That’s often how depression works—on the surface, everything looks perfectly fine, but underneath, there is just this constant, heavy turmoil...
it reaches a point where nobody around you even suspects a thing, while you find yourself sinking deeper and deeper into the void.
As for myself, I’ve been struggling quite a bit with kidney stones... I seem to deal with an attack every few months, but this most recent one has been absolutely brutal, the worst yet, and it simply won't let up, leaving me in pain for a full week now. I find myself wondering what on earth I can actually do to finally get this sorted out.
I did consider heading straight to the Emergency Room—which is where I end up every single time because the cramping is just so intense I can barely move—hoping they might run some imaging or perhaps perform a procedure to break those stones up, but that isn't how it works... They might examine me, administer some injections to dull the pain, and then send me right back home to follow the "standard procedure."
And that standard procedure involves...
- waiting upwards of a month just to get an intravenous urogram (assuming you're lucky enough to even secure an appointment),
- followed by another one or two months waiting to see a specialist,
- and if you are truly fortunate enough that the tests are clear enough to actually pinpoint the stones, you could be looking at many more months of waiting just to get on the schedule for lithotripsy or surgery.
And all of that is assuming everything goes perfectly smoothly.
In reality, when you try to schedule any of this, you often find yourself being shuffled from one hospital system to another, being told things like, "Oh, you belong to that hospital network, not ours," and then suddenly your test results aren't considered valid because a stone shows up on one scan but not another... there's no doctor available, or there's this issue, or that issue, and eventually, you realize it might take years to actually reach a resolution.
There is, of course, a much faster route involving a certain "envelope" under the table to make everything move along instantly, but unfortunately, I just can't seem to save up enough money to afford that particular "envelope"!
It honestly just gets under my skin when you see the referees playing favorites for certain teams—it happens far too often here in the States—and then, if that specific squad happens to stumble or lose, suddenly the officiating becomes incredibly heavy-handed and excessive...
this is particularly aggravating because we’re dealing with players who seem to barely move, practically lounging around on the field most of the time!🙄
perhaps if they picked up on the concept of "passive play" strategies
we might actually see some movement out of these "marathon runners" of ours!😁
First I’m going to beat you, and then I’m going to make love to you... - Bata👍