Uninsured

I officially don’t have health insurance. This is kinda a scary thing for me, which is weird cause I have had many times in my life where I have lacked insurance. The part that sucks right now about my lack of health insurance is that I really think I need to go to the doctor and because of my lack of insurance I will not go because I can’t afford to.  About a week ago I was just sitting at my computer just doing random stuff online like I always do every night after work. I was suddenly struck by this horrible pain in the right side of my abdomen. It was like so intense and came on super suddenly all with in like 10 or 15 seconds. I instantly couldn’t move and felt like I was going to throw up. It was super scary. I have a very high pain tolerance due to the many random injuries and medical things I have had done to me over the years. But this was so bad. I seriously had tears running down my face due to the intensity of the pain and it seemed to spread down to my pelvic region now and seriously every time I tried to move it was like a million knives stabbing into me. I found enough energy to Google “sudden right sided pain” and sad to say all the results were like super doper bad.  The very first thing that pops up is appendicitis and that is a medical emergency and requires an immediate trip to the ER.  Huh now I was even more worried and unfortunately immediately regretted doing what I hate when clients at work do and that’s when you try to self diagnose medical stuff by using the internet.

By now it had been like fifteen minutes of this horrid pain so I thought I really need to decide if I want to go to the ER or not. So here was my dilemma. I only had a few more days of health insurance until it was canceled for that period between when I quit my old job and before I’m eligible with my new one.  So my worry is that if I sat on this pain and didn’t do anything about it and it did turn out to be something really bad, it would show up during this period where I was UN insured.  But on the flip side going to the ER isn’t a cheap thing and I know first hand how much medical stuff costs even when you do have insurance.  I also had to work the next day and I knew that we were short one person and didn’t want to leave them short another.   I admit that I have a strong loyalty to my job. I tend to pick working to taking care of myself often. Maybe that’s what makes me such a great employee. So anyways back to my mysterious pain, so I decided that I would take a few Ibuprofens and see if in two hours it made it go away. If it did then I would see what happens in the morning and maybe try to leave work early and go to the doctor and if it didn’t help in two hours I would go to the ER. I lay down on the couch and waited my fate. After two hours I was super achy but the pain wasn’t as bad so I figured I would just go to sleep, if in the middle of the night once the drugs wore off I was back to having the horrible pain, I would know what I had to do. Imagine my surprise when I woke up the next day feeling totally fine. No pain at all and it was almost like a distant memory of long ago Seriously I felt totally normal. Its hard to believe that it went from so super bad to gone is such a short time.  It was really the weirdest thing I have ever felt.

But here’s the thing that has worried me ever since.  Well a few things do honestly. One I have never felt that sort of sudden onset of excruciating pain before, so I have to think that it still could mean something serious. Also a few days after it happened I have had the worst sore throat that I have ever had in my life. Now at first I just figured that I got a little bit of a cold. I had this sore throat and sometimes I woke up with a bit of congestion. But now that’s its been over a week this sore throat is still super bad like hard to swallow bad, and I have no other signs of illness.  Oh one of my glands is really enlarged and painful as well. It’s like everything I read (yes back on the internet I go to get my self diagnosis) says that if you have a persistent sore throat for longer then a week you should worry about things like strep. I probable should go to a doctor, but because I now don’t have health insurance and super cant afford to go without insurance, I am not going to and so if it is something like strep, It wont go away and could become much worse .Or heck what if its something like tonsillitis and I need to have surgery to remove my tonsils. That would be awesome with no insurance.  Its really tough being in this position because I don’t want to take my health lightly but what else can I do? I sympathize for all the millions of people who don’t have the option of health insurance or who have medical issues that aren’t even helped by their coverage. Because I know that so many people in this same position exist in the country. It’s such a flawed medical insurance system we live in and this week I have kind of felt it first hand. I have tried really hard to take care of myself extra well these last few days, because I know that I start to get really really busy the rest of the month.  I start my new job with all new crazy hours, I have taken on extra shifts at the wildlife center, I am house sitting for a ton of people some weekends three at once, and I know that come the end of the month I’m going to be slightly burned out and over extended feeling. But its strange that I feel totally normal except this super bad, can hardly swallow, only making it livable with the help of Tylenol and Nyquil ,sore throat.  I just hope that I can beat this and that it’s nothing serious, because the last thing I want to have to do is need some sort of emergency surgery while uninsured. That’s like my worst nightmare… Man I’m not even going to think about it.   So for the next two remaining days I am going to drink a ton of juice and tea, lay around the house watching movies and reading books, basically being bored out of my mind. But hopefully it will make the pain go away. If not then hopefully I can live with it for the next 90 days until my insurance kicks in and then I’ll head to the doctor.