Adventures in Health Care

Well, Monday night I came home from work with a sore throat. Tuesday morning I called in sick with a full-blown upper respiratory infection (sore throat, congestion, headache, low brain function). Coincidentally, Ken's car wouldn't start, so he took mine (this ties in, I promise). I slept (OK, and read on the computer and played with the cat) all morning and rested & read in the afternoon. And drank slippery-elm-bark tea (very good for sore throats). That night I got off the couch and promptly tripped over Ivan's scratching post, hurting the toes on my left foot. So there I sat in bed at 10:30 pm, ice packs on my foot.

Wednesday morning I still didn't feel great. Ken was staying home so he could take care of the car. Good thing because my foot still hurt and one toe in particular was swollen and painful so I thought it might be broken.

I called my doctor's office and they said I should go to the emergency room for an X-ray. Yuck. So I called my insurance company's preauthorization number. After misdialing the number twice (my brain being fuzzed from the respiratory infection) and then going through the maze of messages, a human told me I needed to call the main number. So I did. They couldn't find the name of our local hospital for a while, and then after finding it, said I needed a referral. So, back to my doctor's office, this time to talk to the referral person. Did I mention I was put on hold at least twice? You probably guessed that. Well, they said they’d mail the referral to me and no, they couldn’t fax it to the hospital and didn’t have their fax number (Come on, people, there’s only three emergency rooms in the county and you operate a huge medical office, you don’t have all their numbers?)

I finally hung up the phone, lay down on the bed and declared to Ken in the next room, “We’re moving to Canada.” “Fine,” he replied. “I’ll get a job at the Museum of Civilization in Hull.” “Great! I exclaimed. We’ll be near Ottawa and can go hear Charles deLint (one of my favorite fantasy authors) and his Celtic band play.” (We regularly mock-threaten to move to Canada, for political reasons more often than because of the healthcare disaster—excuse me, system-here in the US). I got so mad at the current administration once that I went to the Canada Immigration site and found Ken and I have a lot of “points” toward being desirable immigrants.

We went to the emergency room, got there near the beginning of a “rush,” and spent about 3 hours—not bad for a non-life-threatening emergency. Needless to say, since Ken and I are both emergency-room veterans, we brought books. I spent more time waiting for treatment for my concussion when my friend/classmate Athena and I were hit by a car crossing College Ave. at Rutgers in 1998 and I had one heck of a concussion at that time.

The emergency room visit was the usual rigamarole, wait in line, give them my info and the Holy, Most Vital Health Insurance Card, wait some more, talk to the triage nurse (very friendly and informative—I’ve loved every triage nurse I’ve had, though this one forgot to ask if I was on any medications. I let her know, since I am on two), wait a bit more, get into a room, wait, talk to the doctor, have him check out my respiratory infection as well (getting better and nothing to worry about), enter into a long sequence regarding getting my foot x-rayed (we finally decided against it, long story). The orthopedic whatever (a nice guy) taped my toe to the next one, gave me instructions and one of those lovely rigid-sole foot boot/sandals, and then out again to wait for the discharge nurse and to deal with final insurance stuff. I really got excellent health care, it just took a long time, so I am grateful to the medical staff (also grateful I have health insurance, unlike so many people here in the US!)

By then it was lunchtime so we went to Szechuan Café for chicken with string beans (me) and Ken’s ever-favorite General Tso’s Chicken. The rest of the day was comparatively uneventful: we both took a nap and got Ken’s car (which needed a new battery). Then I got a haircut, ate leftover Chinese food for dinner, watched some anime, and scared the cat by flipping the bedsheet over him.

Tomorrow I go back to work and have a break—no, I better not use that word—have an ordinary day, I hope.

PS from Thursday-- Work was not exactly ordinary--one of our Summer Reading posters still hasn't arrived; the computers were off and on (more off than on) till about 3:30 pm, and there was a meeting-room issue, which my coworker Shelley graciously solved by moving her volunteers into the break room. And it's still only 8pm!