Dirt under my bourgeois nails

Cassandra Disque | April 25, 2010

Gardening soil under my nails that won’t come out. What was once a sign of the working class is now a sign of the bourgeois. Except I’m basically unemployed, can’t afford a manicure, and every job I have held in the past decade has been in a form of the service industry, give or take. [...]

“Looking forward to being attacked”

Cassandra Disque | January 27, 2010

Remember I told you something was happening on my campus yesterday? A female student left one of her classes to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom was a guy — non-student — with a gun. He raped her. It was 3:30 in the afternoon. One of my classrooms is right across the hall from [...]

Bummer of a Day

Cassandra Disque | December 7, 2009

Yeah, I lost my SSI today because Matt makes about $100 too much per month for me to qualify. Which means I no longer qualify for Medicaid or any of those other things… but it’s not like Medicaid was paying for anything, anyway. Shit, we fucking GOT MARRIED because Medicaid wouldn’t pay for the surgery [...]

The Devil and the Dollar

Cassandra Disque | November 9, 2009

Homeownership really is just a way of putting the shackles on tighter. After declaring medical bankruptcy in 2002, I haven’t even been able to get a GAS card or a store card, let alone a credit card. That’s despite my bankruptcy having fallen off one of the three credit bureaus already. All my debt has [...]

“Seizure Activity;” Socio-Linguistics of Disability

Cassandra Disque | August 10, 2009

Friday morning I had 5-6 episodes where I temporarily lost my sight, hearing, and couldn’t move. Each episode lasted for several seconds at a time. Some felt stronger than others, though I don’t know how to describe how. I don’t know if they were painful when they were happening, because all I can remember is [...]

"The Drag of Gimp"

Since 1996, my life has been a long journey of visiting one doctor after another. I look more or less fine, but I'm not. My daily pill count is like playing the dozens with a hospice patient. One doctor will say I'm doomed, and send me to another for treatment, but the treating doctor will find nothing within his or her area of practice that can be treated.

My life is better than a comedy, better than a drama. Anyone who has done this knows what I mean when I say that you have to not only know the rules, but also play the part in order to be allowed in the game. Most people find what we go through in the medical merry-go-round to be unbelievable, which is why I call it "The Drag of Gimp."


About the author

Cassandra Disque

Extemporaneous flibbertigibbet with bone lumps growing out of my coccyx. I was born in 1981. I was another case of "too much, too young," or at least I wanted to be. Now I'm leaning toward "too little, too late," as my body conks out on me, and I find I haven't done hardly any of the things I wanted. This is supposed to happen to people twice my age, so you might find my perspective on life to be a little unusual -- as in, I find just about everything to be hysterically funny, because there's little use in worrying when it's all going to go kaput.