This morning, I drove my best friend to an "urgent medical care visit". Those are the words I texted my boss to tell him I would be a little late.
"Urgent medical care visit" should be taken to mean, "my friend has no insurance, no primary physician, no money, and gets her medical care from the urgent care and/or Emergency Room, depending on the severity of the situation in question."
The fact that I drove her would indicate it's serious, and the place we went to was the ER.
There is so much to talk about, here. Just soooo much.
Beyond the cost of care in this country, there is the issue of medical literacy, and the fact that my friend is the caretaker in her household. She also has an unsympathetic employer.
If you are wondering how it got to "serious", please re-read that last last sentence.
For months, she has been experiencing pain. MONTHS. But her unsympathetic boss needed her. so she took pills and went to work, and her partner needed her, so she hunched over the sink and washed the stupid dishes.
Wanna know why she has no insurance? Well, they needed the money for day to day living, so, no, her needs were secondary and would have to wait until they were doing better. (Note: she is in a same sex, unmarried household and I'm not sure if her partner has insurance or if the partner's employer offers to domestic partners, I just know my friend doesn't have medical insurance)
No Primary Care Physician? Same. Can't be all "going to the doctor for my annual check-up/pap/mammogram" because who the hell has that kind of time and money? That's where they're at. These are real choices that real people are making every day.
Now...as I said, there is a lot to unpack here. My friend is not blameless. I have been hassling her for a while now to get health insurance. It's offered at her work, it's just so damned expensive and the combination of Sticker Shock and I'm Not Worthy has kept her from getting health insurance. I have NO idea what they were doing regarding the "individual mandate" requiring people to get health insurance, but, even though she has been at the same job for well over 10 years, she has not purchased a health insurance plan. That's Issue Number One. I completely understand WHY she doesn't want to shell out the money because it's a lot for an hourly worker. I just wish she would.
It's...a luxury item, health insurance. But it's like you are a person who doesn't carry a purse but you buy a new Louis Vuitton bag every couple months. That's how she looks at it, and how a lot of people do (and...they're not wrong on the price point). It's just something that doesn't seem practical, until...one day you are forced to produce the financial equivalent of a couple dozen Louis Vuitton bags all in one day instead of buying them slowly over time. My friend would have a lot less anxiety about seeking care if she knew, for example, that if she had insurance, even the low cost insurance, that she would get an annual checkup included with that every year. How valuable are annual visits? Very. You and the doctor have those conversations, and things come up, and you say something like, "well, I don't think it's anything, but it hurts when I _____" and your doctor says, "That's interesting. I would like to test you for ____" and you discover a very treatable condition that's a 5 dollar prescription instead of a 5 THOUSAND dollar ER visit down the road.
Spend the savings on a Louis Vuitton bag.
Issue Number 2. Urgent Care, ER, urgent care, ER, urgent care, ER, blah, blah, blah, on an endless cycle of trying to put out a raging fire via bucket brigade. If you have a Primary Care Physician, and you see them once a year, there is a nice record of your stats somewhere, someone to coordinate care, and a less expensive place to go when (still little) things pop up.
"I really should see someone for that. Oh wait! I have someone!" That doesn't make going to the doctor less of a pain-in-the wherever-your-pain-is, but it's less painful than the ER bill.
Issue Number 3, the elephant in the room: It's expensive. Getting sick in this country can and will bankrupt you. I think we all know this and don't need to go into too much detail but if you want to know a big part of the reason why my friend delayed care until she absolutely could not stand the pain another minute, you can look to the fact that to her, even the lower price points are too much--can't afford it, period.
Now, we're going to talk about medical literacy, and we'll call it Issue Number 4. Little, dumb stuff like, if you get antibiotics, take ALL of your antibiotics, even after you start to feel better. Or, great big stuff, like, every growth/mass/shadow on an image isn't cancer, and even if it is, many of them are "easily" treatable and have good survival rates. There is a lot of "I don't want to know" going on in this situation, and, honestly, a lot of denial. My friend has it in her mind that this is a "They're just gonna figure it out and give me a pill" kind of illness, when in reality, based on what I know about the situation, the medicine required may be surgical in nature. While I am personally not afraid of surgery, the thought of it utterly terrifies her. There are a multitude of complicated reasons why it's frightening to her. Some of them are legitimate, some not, but you can bet front and center is the price tag.
Issue Number 5: Why do you keep missing work? Your department is a mess! That's an actual thing that was texted to my friend. "(Department) is a mess!" like it's her fault. My friend doesn't run the place, is not a manager of people and does not decide who covers things in anyone's absence--that's the manager. Guess who complained about the department being a mess? That manager. The one who is in charge of that and all of the other departments. So first of all, fuck that bitch. Second, my friend is a prime example of a worker with an employer who does not give a rats ass about them--hourly wage earner who, if she doesn't work, doesn't get paid, even after years and years of loyalty. No breaks for you, not a hint of compassion. She has a boss who, instead of saying "sorry this is happening" is texting my friend the company attendance policy and trying to shame her for calling in sick "wrong" while she was sitting in the passenger seat of my car on the way to the emergency room. Nobody gives a fuck about the attendance policy when they are crying and hugging me at a stoplight on the way to the hospital, Karen, so save it.
Also, fuck that bitch.
Meanwhile, my boss? A notorious, cranky, curmudgeon? My boss? When I told him I was going to be late because I was running my friend to the ER, he said, "Drive safe and thank you for helping others in need."
Now...my employer would replace me in about 5.26 days if need be, but at least they are not full-on pricks about it in the interim.
And finally....lets talk about what I personally think is the *other* elephant in the room, and that is...women don't take care of themselves. Women are taking care of others and when the shit hits us, we're all, "It's nothing," and you know what? The more you do that, the more people will take advantage of that. The more you work through pain, emotional or physical, the more your boss or your partner is gonna take advantage, and I don't say this to mean that they all do it on purpose, it's just a combination of women not wanting to be a bother and women wanting to be strong for their families and take care of their mates/children and those other individuals just riding along because for them, everything is fine. Everything is fine because we never let on that it's not until it's really, really bad. We're just like that. We joke around about "man flu" when a guy has a cold and goes to bed for three days, when what we should really being doing is exactly what our mates do. Oh, they may not be very good at taking care of us, or not as good as we are at taking care of them, but they will manage. Stop acting like you're the only one who can feed the household, or clean the kitchen. Take your rest when you need it! Let them crow all they want--if they're the type to complain about you being sick, then they'll find something to complain about when you're well, too--might as well go to the doctor, since they're going to complain, anyway...
So...an update. Since I started writing this, my friend has been admitted to a hospital. Bad news, right? Well, in this case, it's not. In this case, it's validation that this illness should be taken seriously, by her boss, her mate, and by my friend, too.
She's gonna half to sit there and...LET PEOPLE TAKE CARE OF HER.
The horror.
She's going to be on happy pain relievers and won't be able to think about how much it's going to cost her.
Good.
She's going to have medical staff tell her mate how to take care of her, and friends like me sending her flowers.
She's going to have a nice "I told you I was sick!" moment with her asshole manager.
Right now, that's my favorite part of this. Because fuck that bitch.
