Today’s artwork is a little bit of digital fluff I put together while I was talking on the phone to people at various health agencies this morning. It’s sort of an ode to my day yesterday, which was spent in the emergency room of the local hospital. I finally hit a health-related wall, and had to call in the professionals. After six hours at the hospital, being poked and prodded and ultra-sounded and monitored, this is sort of how I felt.
The good news: I’m not dead, nor am I in any immediate mortal danger. That’s always a good thing to hear when health care professionals are hovering over me like I’m an egg with a very fragile shell. Also, the icky stuff that drove me to seek help seems to be abating, thanks to some industrial-strength hormones, a big bag of fluids, and some iron supplements. Although I’m one of those people who doesn’t even like to take an aspirin for a headache, there are just times when throwing the entire arsenal of available drugs at a problem is the only solution.
The bad news: I still don’t have insurance, which means a whopper of a bill is on the way for yesterday’s romp through the emergency room. I have forms to fill out for some assistance for which I probably won’t qualify, because while I don’t make much money, I do make enough to eek me up above the poverty line. I’m in a sort of weird health care void—not poor enough for government help, not old enough for Medicare, but old enough that private insurance companies want to charge me the monthly equivalent of my mortgage payment for even the flimsiest of coverage. If you have a job that puts you into a pool, and helps subsidize your insurance premiums, be thankful. When you go solo, and have no pool, and no employer subsidy, it’s bleak.
The ugly: the reason I’ve been having all these problems is that I have a 4-inch fibroid in my uterus, and it must come out. That means seeing another doctor, and eventually, surgery to remove this baseball-sized invader from my body.
So. There you go. I have forms to fill out, and a dog to pick up from the vet, and grocery shopping to do. Life goes on…