I’ve tried my best to complete this blog post all day long. I just haven’t had any time to. My day started off with me waking up, and being told by my grandpa that my insurance was terminated. Excuse me, what?! A little back story here. December 23rd, 2019 I got severely sick. I passed out in the middle of the night walking back from the bathroom, and had to go to the doctor early the next morning. While I was there they did a urine test, a pregnancy test, and they shot me up with some Phenergan. Turns out I had a virus, and I was severely dehydrated because I wasn’t able to keep anything down. I was so dehydrated that if I didn’t get fluids in me immediately I would need to be hooked up to an IV. One shot of nausea medicine later, I was being woken up by my grandma every hour, on the hour, to down some Gatorade, and sleep the day away. Flash forward to yesterday, I get a bill for $260 saying my insurance company hasn’t covered anything. While I was still asleep this morning my grandfather went to my doctor’s office, to make sure I remembered to update my insurance information when I was there in December. The nice receptionist lady ran the information through again, only for it to come up as insurance terminated. I wake up, and am just starting to chow down on a bowl of cereal, when my grandpa comes in and breaks the news to me. Needless to say, I didn’t finish the cereal. I was too busy sweating from anxiety because I suddenly needed health insurance.
The worst possible case scenarios
started running through my mind. Did my father stop paying for health
insurance? Did he remove me off of his policy? I was livid. My anxiety quickly
turned to anger. He pays for nothing for me and hasn’t in ten years, the least
he can pay is my health insurance. It’s the only time I even went to the doctor
last year. I cost him no money, and he must have a family plan either way, so
he isn’t going to save any money by removing me. I believed he’d terminated my insurance
somehow and not even had the decency to tell me.
He was at work until 2:30, which meant I
couldn’t even talk about it with him until then. I spent the entire day
severely sick to my stomach, wondering how I could possibly afford health
insurance, and looking at options. When I finally got to talk to him about it
he explained that I had not been removed and that he was still paying his
health insurance. He even showed me the bill for this months, and proceeded to
call his representative for our health insurance company. I felt relieved, that
he hadn’t screwed me over, and then I felt sad that I had even accused him of
it. More so, that he had done so many things up to that point that my first
conclusion was, he’d messed up again.
It made me think of the readings
we’ve done this week about David Sedaris and how different his father is from
mine. In “Road Trips” he talked about how, “it was my father who rallied the neighbors and initiated a campaign to plant
maples along the side of the road” (Sedaris 61). Sedaris had a strained
relationship with his father, just as I do with mine, but at least he had the
kind of father who he could be proud of at times. It’s clear from the readings
he and his father disagreed on a lot of things, but I doubt Sedaris ever had to
worry about his father paying his health insurance. Trust me, it’s a terrifying
feeling.
After talking to my father about what happened I still had to wait an agonizing two hours before we heard anything. Eventually we heard back from the insurance company, and found out that I do still have health insurance, and am still covered. They aren’t completely sure what happened, potentially that my doctor’s office is out of network. That would’ve been nice to know before I went, but I’ll take that bill over having to pay $800 a month for health insurance. I’ve decided the best thing for me to do is go to bed early, and hope I don’t spend all day tomorrow with a massive headache, and have less anxiety.
I am so very sorry, like so sorry. I understand the fear and anxiety of that sort of thing, and my reaction to situations like that are very similar to yours. I have found that remaining open minded is always best. The body responds to the thoughts even if the action isnt happening. I always try to think positive which is why I now live by Everything Happens for a Reason. It will all work out, everything can be handled and we are strong women +Nick that can take on the world. One step at a time.
ReplyDeleteThat is terrifying. I’m so sorry you had to deal with something like that. However I’m also very happy that you figured it all out. I hope you don’t wake up tomorrow feeling bad, we all deserve to feel good.
ReplyDeleteThis is the worst type of fear to be walking around with, especially now during this virus. As soon as I heard about the virus, the first thing I thought of was "I hope I don't get it, because I can't afford a doctor." I will have debt for the rest of my life from just a handful of doctor visits. It is so unfair that at 20-22 years old we have to be worried about these types of things. So many of my friends have told me "I don't care what happens, do not call me an ambulance. I can't pay for it." It is truly sad and I hope that you can put these worries out of mind for the day.
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