Tweens: WTF?

I was a prepubescent person at one point in my life, and a teen girl at another point of my life. I listened to music and preferred certain bands over others. I however, never looked like this:



The following is an excerpt from an article in the August issue of Rolling Stone. The article focuses on the Jonas Brothers (a uber-famous boy band whose fan based is primarily adolescent girls), it's titled, "The Clean Teen Machine".

"Suddenly, the lights go dark, triggering a roar in the 20,000-sear Cricket Wireless Pavilion that can only be described as primal. And it is, in a way. The neuropsychiatrist Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of the bestseller The Female Brain, says the release of dopamine in a screaming teenage girl's brain upon seeing her pop idol is like "injecting heroin." Being with other screaming girls, she says, only makes the effect wilder.
"There's a thing in biology we call synchrony," Brizendine says. "Basically, one girl affects another affects another, and it becomes a domino effect building up to that level of hysteria. They are getting all these brain hits of dopamine, and also oxytocin, which is a love-and-bonding hormone. Teenage girls have so much estrogen, which just catapults the level of dopamine and oxytocin in the brain, creating this sort of ecstatic rush in themselves and others. It truly is a state of ecstatic love."

Wow!

Surgeon Generals Warning: immunodefiency may result in financialdeficiency

So I have this little immunodeficiency, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis that is. I was diagnosed with JRA around the age of 13. The way I see it, one day my body just decided to attack itself because it thought there was some kind of disease or owwie in and around my joints. Being the optimist that I am, I just see it as my body being "prepared". My little, eager soldiers (white blood cells) man the fort around my joints, guns a blazin', just waiting for any unwelcome adversary to try and attack. Unfortunately, their zealousness causes me physical pain.

The majority of the time my pain is fairly minimal, usually resulting in some morning stiffness and joint tenderness that I've grown quite accustomed to. However, there are the occasions when I can't even move my shoulders, elbows and/or hands without crying out in pain. I'm thankful that my disease is not as critical as it could be yet I do get apprehensive when I think about myself 50 years down the road with this disease.

You may be asking yourself if this is a pity party. No, I've never used my disease to my advantage nor do I intend to. I'm telling you all this to set the stage......

Scene: Walgreens (near the ghetto)

Characters: Brianne (me)
Rookie pharmacy clerk

BRIANNE meanders into Walgreens with the goal of picking up her much needed JRA prescription. As BRIANNE walks up to the pharmacy desk she is greeted by ROOKIE.

ROOKIE
(scripted)
How may I help you?

BRIANNE
I'm here to pick up a prescription for Ramalamadingdong*

ROOKIE
How do you spell that?

BRIANNE
R-a-m-a-l-a-m-a-d-i-n-g-d-o-n-g

ROOKIE
Let me see if we have that ready for you, just one moment please.

ROOKIE walks to the "Great Wall 'O Prescriptions" and returns with a simple script.

ROOKIE
Let me run in the back and grab this for you.

ROOKIE returns with a check-book sized box containing Brianne's "relief" and scans the medication.

ROOKIE
There is a 60 dollar co-pay on....wait, that can't be right....what the? Wow, a 60 dollar co-pay!?!

BRIANNE
(despairingly)
No, that's right.

ROOKIE
(sympathetically)
Well, your insurance saved you $1,650.00

BRIANNE bends over and takes it in the ass swipes her debit card, takes her purchase and exits. ROOKIE watches as yet another slave to the pharmaceutical companies is defeated.

Cut

*names have been changed because HIPPA says so

The point of my little screenplay is to demonstrate the sheistyness that is the pharmaceutical companies. SIXTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS for two injections! Seriously folks, I give myself one injection of this drug every two weeks.

Let me put it this way, approximately one hour ago I injected myself with 800 dollars worth of fluid that I need in order to be mobile. Someone might just as well throw me a bag of dope and I'd be set, it'd be 3000 times less expensive too. Whoever thought it rational to put that kind of price tag on something people NEED in order to function semi-normally is on some serious sheist.

Don't get me wrong, this drug has improved mine and others' qualities of life, yet why at such a cost? What happens when we can't pay these outrageous costs? I'll tell you what....we cripple up, go on disability and need to be cared for by institutions that the government needs to pay for. Preventative care people....it makes a lot more sense, and a hell of a lot more dollars$