Rush Limbaugh, sluts and my health

I really wanted to stay away from politics on my new blog. I wanted to write about the wonderful time I have out in the garden, the road to chicken keeping and my little suburban farm life, but it's gotten personal. I have decided to write an open letter to Rush Limbaugh, Patricia Heaton and all of the other nutbags who believe that Viagra, Cialis, Levitra and for that matter, metformin, adriomycin and penicillin should be covered by one's insurance, but not birth control pills.

To Whom it May Concern:

I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). It is a syndrome which causes, among many other interesting and unpleasant things, infertility, hyperandrogenemia, hirsutism, obesity, amenorrhea, and acne.

You might say, well, I know you and I don't see these things in you.  You know why? Because for the last 15 years, despite not having a rats chance in a lion's den of getting pregnant, I have been on birth control pills.

My insurance, through my employer, covers my medications. I am grateful for that, as my medications that would have cost me $6,000 have cost me about $1,500 in co-pays. Which, by the way, is a lot of money for people who aren't Patricia Heaton and Rush Limbaugh.

I don't like having PCOS.  I don't like having to take medication every day.  It is not something I asked for. But even if I did ask for it, even if I signed up on the dotted line that said "I want PCOS and all of the side effects." I should be entitled to the medications that treat this disease.

Having said all of that, let's talk about sluts. Women who have sex with multiple men, or one man and has decided they don't want babies, or women who have slightly more sex than you do with slightly more partners than you have, also deserve to take this medication and you, sirs and madams, do not get to choose why they take the medicine.  If a doctor prescribes it, no matter what the reason, they get to take it and insurance companies have a moral, yes, moral contract to provide ANY approved medication that a doctor prescribes. My employer and my insurance company have no right to decide willy nilly that a prescription that my doctor prescribes, whether because I'm having tons of potentially baby-making sex every day, four times a day or because I start growing giant cystic tumors on my ovaries.  That is a decision made in the privacy of my doctor's office. 

I honestly never thought I'd be writing about my PCOS. I hate having it with every bone in my body. It screws with my life in ways that are uncomfortable, unpleasant and sometimes even dangerous, but I have it and I am grateful that science has granted me the opportunity to take medications to help treat the symptoms. I don't need anyone crawling into my medical charts, much less my underwear to determine what I should and should not be taking and neither does any other woman.  Period.