20/20 hindsight

Several years ago I was laid off work.  With getting laid off, came the reality of no insurance.   I was relatively healthy (although I did have a history of high blood pressure) and I chose to forego very expensive insurance.  I decided that I would live healthily and make healthy choices.  My blood pressure could be controlled with an active life style and proper diet.

Early last week I developed a blurry spot in my right eye.  Thinking I had scratched my cornea or gotten some annoying bit of fluff in my eye I did not pursue it for several days.  After all, I had no insurance.  By Wednesday I finally decided I would fork out the dollars and go to the eye doctor.  I found a wonderful local DR who offered a 25% discount for time of visit payment.  I made my appointment for Thursday and off I went.  The doctor dilated and looked deep into my eye and proclaimed I had broken a blood vessel on my retina, which was causing the blurriness.  "This is bad," she said.  "Let's take your blood pressure."

I tried to discourage her because I didn't want to know.  She could not be dissuaded.  Her cheap little drugstore blood pressure cuff returned a very ugly number.  Very ugly.  She panicked and immediately referred an me to urgent care facility while singing tales of doom.

I went home and got Peter and off we went.  The office was unable to see me that day and suggested I try the next.  The next day the same place could not see me but I found another one that accepted walk ins and catered to low income people.  (How far I've come... sigh...)

After a painfully boring, and somewhat stressful two hour wait as a walk in I was finally seen by a nurse.  She took my blood pressure.  Calmly said, "let's try your other arm..."  Then she said "Do you feel alright?  Any numbness?  Shortness of breath?  Chest pain?"   "We are going to do an ekg..."

Then the Dr made an appearance and said, "We've called an ambulance. You are going to the ER. Now."  Very quickly 4 very handsome paramedics showed up and started plying me with questions and checking my blood pressure.  Everyone was in a quiet state of alarm.  Asking the same annoying questions over and over again.  "Any chest pains?  Numbness?  Tingling in your extremities?"  No, I maintained, just a blurriness in my right eye.  I felt fine - although I was beginning to join the party in panicking and over reacting and my blood pressure was most certainly creeping up by the second.  By the time the last paramedic took my blood pressure it was about 250/133.  They were certain I was going to have a stroke any second.  They would not let me drive myself to the ER.  I was put on a gurney, wheeled out the front doors of the Urgent Care clinic and off I went to the hospital.  I still felt fine.  I asked the paramedic if we could stop at the feed store for chicken scratch, my chickens were hungry!  While I was being chauffeured in my very nice personal limo (at least they didn't use lights or sirens!), I called Peter to fill him in and sent a text to my boss, calling in sick for the next day.   I asked  cute Paramedic Hall if I got a discount because I was being nice.  No.  But he promised he would make the bill as small as he could.

Here is a tip, if you show up at the hospital in an ambulance, you do not need to wait through the triage nurse or wait to be taken in.  It was very quick and efficient.

They hooked me up to machines that measured my pulse and my blood pressure and my heart.  They took my blood and made me pee in a cup.  They sent a student nurse in to insert an I.V.   I stupidly, cheerfully, agreed that that was fine, everyone must learn sometime.  She tried twice before the real nurse took over.  '

They started me on blood pressure medicine through the I.V. and slowly, throughout the day my blood pressure lowered.  I continued to be cheerful.  My paramedics came back in with other patients and stopped in to say hi.  Paramedic Hall even took a seat and chit-chatted about life while he waited for his partner to fill out paperwork.  My nurse, Jean, hung out in my room because she said, "She would rather be in there than in other patient rooms.."

It was a grand old time until....they gave me one more medicine for the final push to lower my blood pressure.  It was some toxic mix of chemicals that surely must have been pure poison.  I stopped being cheerful.  But my blood pressure was low enough to send me home and they signed me out and sent me on my way.  The last medicine made me deathly ill and I spent the next 16 hours alternately vomiting and sleeping.    I find it very ironic that I felt so much worse LEAVING the hospital than when I got there.

I have begun daily exercises - I used to love to run and will work toward that goal.  I am watching what, and how much, I eat.  I am making healthy changes.  I am on twice daily pills now and need to find a real doctor who will see a non-insured patient.  Doctors don't typically like our kind.  My blood pressure this morning was 136/86 - probably the lowest it's been in 15  years.  I was so weak I had to go back to bed.

The good news is that if it really drops low, I just have to think of how much money this is costing and it sneaks right back up to a reasonable level.

I probably should have insurance.  I will probably find some soon.  Now that I have first hand experience of the consequences.