The reason your health insurance is so much....

That would be me.

I'm completely, 100 percent at fault for the high price you pay for health insurance. Sorry.

Well sort of.

I stopped by my trusty CVS Pharmacy (which filled more than 90 percent of prescriptions in less than 15 minutes last week, thank you very much) and dropped off a prescription for the insulin I use in my insulin pod (pictured!).

My pod provides me with a pancreas-like basal rate of insulin all day and night, then extra boluses (according to how much I'm eating and how my blood glucose numbers are) for meals, etc. It's a pretty ingenious and expensive system. It also makes my diabetes life very flexible, intuitive and healthy.

Bully for me.

But my supplies - insulin, test strips, thyroid medication and pods - don't come cheap.

For example - my insulin (the newest, best fast-acting stuff around) Apidra - costs $90 for one vial. I use three vials each month (that's $270 worth of insulin). With my insurance I pay $45.

See? That leftover $225 is paid for by everyone else with my health insurance and the company.

I also pay $45 for about $300 of blood glucose test strips that I use each month to monitor my levels. Whoa, I'm really getting off easy.

For me, health insurance is absolutely, positively essential. And it doesn't even cover everything, but it makes my good health affordable for me. Whenever I realize this I feel humbled and thankful. I certainly don't believe that healthcare in America is perfect, or very good in many ways. But I know I'm getting more than I'm paying for, but a long shot.

So, thank you.

Broke as a joke

I can see it replay in nightmare-ish speed: A 2.5-year-old in my class moved quickly down the slide in the gym on his knees, reached the end and tumbled oddly. I watched him and felt that "hmm, that was weird" teacher-feeling. He stood up, crying and his forearm looked distinctly curved. Oh. Gasp. Look at his arm. I was already moving toward him, quick as I could.

All in about 3 seconds.

I swooped in, Hey, hey, it's OK, friend. We rushed out of the gym, toward the office as quick as I could move. Call and tell them I'm coming. It's his arm. I stayed on his non-injured side, moving as fast as I could, calm as I could pretend to be. I picked him up. He grabbed at me with his mangled arm. It's OK. You're doing so good! I'm so proud of you. Let's see what we can do. Want to sing a song? Let's sing a song.

Arm slinged. Mom called. Mom in cab. Deep breaths.

We sat at my desk, looking through drawers for interesting stuff. What's this? A baseball, yes! Let's sing "Go Cubs Go."

We were both hot as can be. He was wet and teary. I hear my eyes were as big as saucers as I watched, comforted and held this little broken-armed friend. His mommy walked in. We hopped in a cab. Off to Children's.

Triage, registration, X-ray (in a lead outfit!), kids movies on the Children's Hospital tvs, deep breaths. Broken. Fractured in two spots. Calls to daddy, nanny, grandma. Deep breaths.

Motrin. Numbing cream for the IV. Morphine. Ketamine (seriously!). Conscious sedation.

Doctors placed his bones back where they belong. He was back home eating hotdogs with his arm in a cast before I got home from work.

Now it's just more deep breaths.

Running just as fast as I can...

After my recent Race to Wrigley 5K success I've been thinking pretty happy running thoughts.

(Before the race I was lamenting about how "I'm just not a runner," "running is just not for me" and "I will run the race and that's it." Oh, silly me!)

Today I put those thoughts to the streets with a wonderful 2 mile run through my neighborhood. I used Map My Run to check out how far I went. I'm not just writing this to brag about my living up to my personal fitness pledges though.

I actually learn things on my runs! I learned that a new bar opened up very close to my home. I also found this architectural salvage space - I peeked in the windows and saw two very fierce statues made of old metal parts. I remembered where there's a video rental shop still open and saw a few homes for sale that I'll never afford.

And I ran - because I am a runner after all.

Cougar v. Mandasaurus

Crap!
Chicago Police killed a 150-pound cougar mere miles away from the Mandasaurus' homestead.

I called my best friend - a returned Peace Corps volunteer and general bad-ass - her advice on cougar attacks:

"Fight back. Fight back as hard as you can."

Seriously!?! I'm supposed to fight a cougar? A fierce cat that weighs nearly as much as me?

Seriously. According to my research, a cougar can definitely out-run me (despite my stellar 5K finish). I can't freak it out with my panic dance - panic might cause cougar-frenzy. I also should not play dead:

Whatever you do, don’t play dead—this will likely cause the cougar to drag you to a private area and have its way with you.

Jeez!

Don't worry. A city-dwelling Mandasaurus like me can deal with a cougar no problem with alertness, composure and moxie.

I got news for you...

We visited the Freedom Forum's Newseum on Friday - a museum in Washington, DC, dedicated to journalism, news-gathering and the beautiful First Amendment.

Despite the 12,000-word hate-laden essay by the New York Times architecture review, it's a pretty amazing place. Six-stories is towering in DC and the Newseum succeeds in understanding journalism in the big picture - the good, the bad, and the ugly. There's even funny corrections and bad headlines posted in the bathroom.

We watched movies about digital media, the history of broadcast news and Pulitzer Prize winning photographs. We stood at a memorial to journalists who've died on the job - from Elijah Lovejoy in 1837 to the five journalists who've died this year. You could look journalist up on nearby computers and learn about their lives and deaths.

I teared up watching a two-minute feature about the news coverage on Sept. 11 from the seemingly accidental first plane crash to the towers falling: "There are no words," said Aaron Brown. Seriously.

I did it!

In the speedy time of 37 minutes and 57 seconds (yes, that's less than 38 minutes) I finished the Race To Wrigley 5K!

Surely there are faster runners than I, but I did not walk one bit and I felt good when I crossed the finish line (after running through Wrigley's concourse!). The race began at 8 a.m. with snowy-sleety-rainy crap falling, a bit of wind and clouds. When I finished the sun was out, but it's still 37 degrees outside. Brrrrr!

In this picture you can see me turning the bend under Wrigley's marquee at Addison and Clark.

I did it! Yay!

A Week of Woo-Hoos

What a week! Spring is sorta-kinda here. Baseball is on. Here's why my week was pretty awesome, both for silly and intellectually sound reasons.
Hey, hey, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today.... Go Cubs Go! It's fun to see Cubs fans on the train - now at least that will possibly change when I'm standing about an inch away from a wastey-face fan screaming about Kerry Wood.


It appears - quite possibly because my newspaper got soaked in the rain today and became unreadable - that there is less stupid drama in the presidential campaign right now. I'm happy that it appears that democrats will act like democrats and talk about how republicans are evil. C'mon, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can both agree that John McCain is scary, old and unhinged. Let's go with that, not yucky dem-on-dem infighting.


My 5K is in 8 days and I'm feeling rather prepared. Hip-hip-hooray. Tomorrow I might run with an iPod. Spooky.


Earth Hour, which sounds rather minor, saved 7 percent of the power used in Chicago last Saturday. Tall buildings, museums, Navy Pier's Ferris wheel and other buildings shut off the lights to support conservation. I love it! We should have an Earth Hour every week! Why are all those lights on in skyscrapers all night anyway?


Lastly I'm feeling really happy because we can open windows now, at least for a few hours in the afternoon. It makes a world of difference. Hearing birds chirp does a Mandasaurus good.