Pre-Existing Condition 5


My pre-existing condition is that I’m human.


As a human being, I am both strong and fragile.  Accidents, maladies, genetic variations, viruses and other smack* happens to me.  I grow and grow and grow, then I stop growing and just be-be-be, until I begin my descent (i.e., deteriorate ) and, eventually, die (of one thing or the other).

I don’t know what’s going to get me or when.  The possibilities are endless.


“It” is every where – in the food, in the water, in the vessels in which the food is packaged and prepared.   It is in the air.  It is in the radiation beaming from space, across the room, and into my ear.  Some people weather these daily assaults and live long lives nonetheless.  Others succumb and fall along the way, sometimes even as babies who did nothing more than be born.   Each of us is invaded by one “it” or another.


Picture this:  two sisters.  They have the same mother, same father.  They grow up in the same household, eat the same foods, drink the same water, and attend the same schools.  One  sister, after feeling poorly and out-of-sorts for a while,  is diagnosed, at age 23 with an autoimmune disease.  In subsequent years she will be denied coverage because of her pre-existing condition.  As if it is her fault.


My pre-exiting condition is being humanAre you really not gonna cover that?





*a phrase from back-in-the day used instead of s**t.


About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.

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5 thoughts on “Pre-Existing Condition

  • David Mynott II

    You got that right Candelaria: health care is a basic human right. ‘Right’ up there with housing, education, peace, justice, freedom, & all the rest of it. America’s track record on health care for people of color & women is an abomination. That evil must end. Someday we’ll see a Single-Payer system, & an end to machinations of insurance companies who make a profit by denying us care. Cut that middle man out, & we will save billions of dollars & thousands of lives.

    The other ‘X’ factor is the environment. Environmental pollution is the #1 cause of human illness. Mankind has made such a mess of things. But we can & will detox our world. In the interim: eat as much organic, chemical-free food as possible, exercise, rest, meditate, minimize stress, laugh, love—& keep fighting for justice. Take heart: your efforts to help us have not gone unnoticed. If you look up, you’ll note that the weight of your words on healthcare, is helping bend the long arc of justice back towards the Earth. And the Earth a ‘pre-existing condition’ we certainly hope persists.

  • Candelaria

    Thanks for your thoughtful and info filled comment.
    I know environmental issues play a huge part in health care and am working hard to live greener and differently.

  • Tehuti

    Your effort to eat clean and free will at least control knowing what you’re ingesting. It’s sad terms like natural, organic, free for example have lost the power to accurately tell us what is natural, organic or free.