Call it irony or maybe just dumb luck, but our Health and Medicine issue just happens to coincide with the passing of the historic Healthcare Reform Bill late last month. The sometimes crazy politicking and rallies for and against the bill have captured headlines for nearly a year. Now we get to sit back and see if the reform works and how it benefits all of us.
I, for one, am for the bill. Everyone deserves insurance and medical care.
The scenario in which you have to file bankruptcy after battling an illness is a bad one. I should know—it happened to me in 2002.
At the risk of sounding like one of those old people who shares way too much information about health issues, the healthcare debate reminded me of the only time I ever spent a week in the hospital.
I remember lying in bed with a headache one Friday evening in September 2002. Late that night, through my tears and frustration, my husband drove me to the local ER. I vaguely remember the visit, but Demerol was involved and shortly before dawn, we drove home with a diagnosis of a migraine. My head finally didn’t hurt and I was in a state of blissful loopiness.
Unfortunately, that didn’t last.
By the time lunch time rolled around the next day, I was back in my bed, holding my head and trying to will the pain away. My lesbian friend convinced me to go back to the hospital. All I really remember is the unbearable pain in my head as our car crossed some railroad tracks. I don’t know how long I was in the ER, but I experienced my first and only spinal tap. Even though I was out of it, I remember the pain vividly. My friend had to leave the room because she said the pain on my face was too much for her to handle.
I blacked out shortly after that. The next morning I awoke in a hospital bed to see my husband and several friends in my room wearing masks over their noses and mouths. I immediately panicked, thinking I had some awful, incurable disease. The doctors weren’t sure if I had West Nile virus or a form of meningitis.
Doctors sent me to a different hospital more readily equipped to handle my condition, and I literally have a span of three days in my internal timeline that isn’t quite complete.
Fortunately, my doctors were open-minded and let my partner visit me throughout the stay, even though we had no legal documentation showing we were together. At one point, my mother considered visiting because I “wasn’t out of the woods” just yet. Eventually I beat the viral meningitis. I was able to go home after a five-day stay in the hospital and I continued IV therapy for two weeks.
Overall, I made a full recovery except for the occasional migraine that still sneaks up on me.
A month after my ordeal, the medical bills arrived in my mailbox. I had health insurance through my employer, but it wasn’t enough to combat the mounting debt. Lab tests, two ER visits, an MRI, two CT scans and a week-long stay in the hospital and continuing IV therapy put me $50,000 in debt. I made just over $20,000 a year at that time and I was already just scraping by.
Threatening phone calls from creditors started and my car insurance company dropped me because my payment was late. I guess that didn’t matter, considering my vehicle was repossessed—while I was at work!
I found an attorney and filed bankruptcy. Nearly $70,000 in debt was cleared from my name, but my once-spotless credit was in the gutter. I knew I could forget owning a house or a new car any time in the near future.
We survived, and now that more than seven years have passed, that bankruptcy seems like a distant memory. But I can’t help but think that if it wasn’t for that one illness, I would have made it further financially than I am now.
An illness should not put you in the poor house. Hopefully, the newly passed healthcare legislation will prevent that from happening to anyone else.
You must be logged in to post a comment.