Somewhere around a couple months ago, June 8th to be precise, I started on an exciting adventure not only in the Heath Care system of the US but also in pain. Lots and lot of pain. Now, if you watch the movies or read the comics you might be led to believe that becoming a cyborg is all fun and games. "I'll take that cyber-eye with the infra-red vision and the recording capacity good sir. Now put me under and install it."
But no, the reality is much. No, it's a lot more painful and, for lack of a better word, accidental.
So on the day in question I had ventured out in my current town of residence, the beautiful and ever interesting town of Taos, New Mexico. As beautiful as it is weird. Well, probably ore beautiful that weird in the town, but the mesa people make up for the slight lack of weirdness in the town itself. I was at the local park, Kit Carson Park nee Red willow Park nee Kit Carson Park, a name dispute yet to be resolved. I went there to meet up with the local punks, and no that bank isn't from Taos, just an illustration of what I mean by punks. So I went to meet the local punks for the weekly game of kickball and when I least expected it the precursor to cyborghood struck.
It was the first time I'd been out to the local game, I didn't know a lot of people, although I was playing drums for a local band. I'd just started playing so I hadn't played any shows and I hadn't been to any parties, working from home and being an oldpunk like I am. So I went out to the game of kickball to meet some folks. I had a few drinks, hung out, had some fun. Then it was my turn at bat. Or at foot, not sure on the lingo as I didn't spend a lot of time there.
I got up there, a bit tipsy, and stood at the plate ready for my first pitch. My running shoes on, purchased the year before so I could take the dog for walks. It's a fast dog. I say it because I try not to gender dogs, they don't generally like it and they don't act that different based on gender in my experience. But this is my first dog so my experience is admittedly limited. The truth is that I don't like to gender dogs because I have a bad habit of gendering them all as men, and cats all as shes.
But I was up there a bit tipsy waiting for the pitch to come, jostling for position. Having played and coached soccer for some number of years I knew just how to connect with the ball for maximum distance, and not to much height, and connect I did. I didn't wait to watch where it went and turned toward first and broke into a run. I led with my right foot, my running shoes ticking well to the ground with the first step, then followed with my left. This was where things went horribly wrong.
A loud SNAP echoed across the field as I came down on my left foot, or so I'm told. I don't remember a whole lot. What I do remember is falling to the ground, more confused than hurt at first. I looked at my leg and saw something rather out of place. Mostly my leg, a new knee halfway up my thigh. I shouted for help, something along the lines of "I think I broke my leg." Not being as eloquent a speaker as a I am a writer, obviously.
Everyone sort of stood around for a second. It could have been less than a second. I started screaming at that point. I couldn't say exactly what but I'm pretty sure it was about definitely breaking my leg and something about an ambulance as well. The sort of thing you scream when you're pretty sure you've just broken your leg and the pain is creeping up on you past the shock. Luckily I managed to get the leg back in a reasonable position before the shock wore off completely, hiding my new knee.
Then it was a blur of waiting for people to move me or do things to me and being moved or having things done to me for the next 24 hours. The nurses, doctors, paramedics and candy stripers were uniformly pleasant and good at their jobs. At least I assume the candy stripers were good at their jobs, I'm not positive what their job consists of so I couldn't say for sure. And I never actually saw one, but in my heart I know they were there, striping the hell out of candy as they were tasked to do.
What I found out from the parade of medical experts was that I'd shattered my femur. Not good. I spent the first 24 hours in a full leg splint and in traction. Any time I wasn't in traction I was in even more pain. I didn't even know what traction was before this, but I knew it was bad if you were in it. I found out that traction is not as exciting as all the stories would have you believe. traction is when they pull on whatever limb it is that you've broken so the bone doesn't rub together.
In that 24 hour time period I had two ambulance rides. The first bumpy, which was the worst thing ever. The second curvy, which was not the worst thing ever, but still was bad. The paramedics in both cases were wonderful and did their jobs perfectly, as far as I could tell. Obviously I spent some time in the hospital with some awesome nurses who are now on strike, as well as a decent doctor, although he left me with more scars than absolutely necessary.
During my recovery I found out that I had chosen well when I chose my health insurance off of the exchange. I had picked a silver plan, and paid around 65 bucks a month out of pocket with the rest subsidized. I had no co-pay for most doctor visits and prescriptions, and boy was I happy about that. I hadn't paid a dime out of pocket yet, and while I'd received bills for services rendered most of those dropped drastically when they sent the second copy after insurance. It was great! Obamacare was really working out for me.
However, a couple weeks ago that all came crashing to the ground. I suppose I was lucky it took them so long to do it, and by them I mean the insurance company, but it was all but inevitable. I hadn't had any of my calls to the Orthopaedic doctor's office about refilling my prescriptions returned and when I showed up to my Primary Care Physician's office for my follow up appointment on a bone they told me the insurance company was denying my claims and I owed them a few hundred dollars if I wanted to be seen. Not having a few hundred dollars available I rode my bike home, or part way home to be picked up by my partner. I was well enough to ride a good number of miles so I couldn't complain too much.
When I contacted my insurance company the next day they told me that I my insurance had been cancelled in March because they hadn't received payment by the end of February. While this was true I had continued to receive bills and had paid my insurance company more than $400 dollars. In fact, I had a bill in front of me while talking to the insurance company that was dated the day I injured my leg. Of course, this was the insurance company doing it's best to get out of paying the bills.
On the advice of my partner I called up the national exchange hotline and talked with them where they escalated the issue and told me it would be resolved in less than 30 days. Now I'm waiting to hear back from them. Meanwhile I'm stuck in a holding pattern and I can't get more care without paying up front. As I noted before all the necessary care has been completely, so I was very lucky in that respect. I can walk and ride my bike and my new cyborg leg, so called because of the titanium rod in it, is getting better and better. I'm even going up and down stairs without using the railing.
All in all things are looking well. If worse comes to worse and they deny me any coverage then I'll end up with some medical debt, but that doesn't show up on a credit report and is dischargeable in bankruptcy, and given my existing debt I'm not terribly worried about it. The only real worry is that I won't find out if I have a bigger problem with my bone density, something that is a real possibility at this point.