No Debate Here on Health Insurance

This morning we did something surprising: we signed up for health insurance under the Covered California system. It took about half a chatty hour with a charming insurance salesman named Brian, and presto, we're covered as of January 1st, 2014.

After Bernie's job at New United Motors and Manufacturing, Inc (NUMMI) went belly-up, we had an interval of time with a COBRA extension of our health insurance. We applied for continued coverage with the same company so that there would not be any question of concealed health conditions. Well, Health Net really didn't give a shit, and succinctly informed me that they would not cover me at all, even though they had records proving that the herniated disk in my neck was not considered to be worthy of any medical procedure ... Well, they wouldn't unless I was willing to have an MRI done at my own expense and prove that a miracle had happened and the herniation had magically disappeared.  Or unless I was willing to pay more per month for our health insurance than we were taking in from Bernie's retirement.

We opted not to go back on the health insurance grid. Oh well. Since that time, I've incurred $17 a year in flu shots, and needed no other medical treatment, thank God. With the money we didn't spend on health insurance, we could have put a down payment on a modest house. With the money we didn't spend on health insurance, we could pay our mortgage, and eat.

People have really been slamming what they call "Obamacare," virtually pissing all over it and scratching dirt behind them to boot. Yet as of the first of the year, should I get hit by some asshole on her cell-phone while driving her monster SUV, I could actually receive hospital care instead of waving off an ambulance with my broken bones because I have no way of paying big medical bills without re-mortgaging my house, going bankrupt, and putting the whole family into a tiny apartment plus Bern and I going back to work at what would probably be minimum wage part-time jobs. Slam that, haters. I like most of all that the health coverage we're going to get includes screening procedures, like mammograms and colonoscopies. (I've been sitting on an other-shore stash of money for my next colonoscopy -- colon cancer is THE one preventable cancer if you can (so to speak) get your ass to the doctor and have pre-cancerous growths removed -- and with a family history that gives me a one in four chance of developing it, that's an important procedure.) California was one of the few states that opted to use their federally-supplied monies and arrange their own version of health care; as a result, we're not as impacted and messed up as other states who said, "To hell with Obamacare, let the Feds figure it out." Good on you, California.

I'm glad for the time I was without health care, as it has helped me begin to come to terms with my own mortality, and has given me a little clearer sight into the real human condition -- that being covered by health insurance in no way guarantees that you will not die untimely or die pointlessly or die before you think you are ready or deserve to die. Nevertheless, I'm grateful for the coverage that will allow me to receive some sensible care when I need it in the future.

Weak Week

It's been a week to remember, to forget.

*Note * Biological, medical junk you may not want to hear.

On March 31st, I was scheduled to go to the hospital for a routine screening colonoscopy. Ugh, yes. However, it is something I have to do every three years, because I am a "high risk" person for colon cancer -- my dad died of it, and my mother damn near died of it. Colon cancer also killed one of my uncles. Statistically, I have a one in four chance of contracting colon cancer.

"However," my doctor told me, "this is the one cancer that is completely avoidable. We can actually prevent it by regular colonoscopies."

Frankly, it's a creepy procedure, having some random doctorate wander through your ass and into your innards with a spotlight, looking for stalactites and stalagmites and speed bumps and things. Thank God my doctors have thoroughly bought into the general anesthetic thing, and don't expect people to just "tough it out" as my parents experienced it.

Fact is, I had the procedure done on Thursday, and I get another three-year "all clear." I'm glad of that. I don't want to die like Dad did, in excruciating pain strapped into a hospital bed while medicos tried to eke another couple weeks of life out of him.

And I learned some things this time around. My first experience of colonoscopy was that it was scary, but not so awful as I thought it would be. The preparation was the worst, having to swallow down a laxative that makes you shit your innards inside out. The second time a new doctor had taken over the practice, and he is one who believes that double the "shit your innards inside out" is better than one "shit your innards inside out." That time was a nightmare of stomach upset and shitting the innards inside out ALL NIGHT LONG (do not play in your head the Lionel Richie song "All Night Long") because he wanted the attached garage scrubbed clean enough to perform a white glove inspection. That time, three years ago, was so hideously exhausting that I felt truly sick by the time I arrived at the hospital for the procedure, not having slept in more than 24 hours. (They were surprised that my blood pressure was high, WTF, I was feeling deathly ill from dehydration and exhaustion!)

This time, the prep was modified, as in the interim, someone had noticed that double the cleansing action was damn near killing people. That was the good news. The bad news was that my viscera didn't get the memo. As the day approached, my body went into flight-or-fight mode, and unable to flee, erupted in a painful and disgusting display of fear: atopic eczema, in the form of blistering, itching lesions. GROSS!

The actual preparation this time was a cake walk (though I believe the timing was off according to the doctor's schedule), and of course by the time they put me on an intravenous drip of versed I didn't give half a shit (so to speak) about what they were going to do to me.

Nevertheless, I am left with the remnants of the ordeal in the form of the dozens of slowly-healing lesions. I hope that in a few days, I'll be able to get back to normal activity uninhibited by big-ass blisters and put this experience behind me as a cluster of lessons well-learned.

And at least, for the next three to six years, I'm not going to contract colon cancer.

Oh, and at the top of the page, that's one of my 2011 portraits of our cherry tree blossoms. I may be a coward feeb, but Spring is strong.