Broken Doll

(Jah, I’m sure there were some of you out there in cyberland who thought I was bullshitting when I said I am not writing here when I’m having a good day — I’m out living life. So, hey… sometimes I even have many good days in a row! snerk.)

On the other hand, sometimes the bad days creep back.

I have no health insurance. My employer is too small to manage it. I could afford an individual policy (now, anyway) but no private carrier will have me. At least, I was declined when I was in good health and not having needed treatment for anything at all for over a year. And then again, when I’d been fine for around three years. So I’m thinking my odds aren’t good.

And I am in pain.

No obvious cause. I just woke up in the dead of night a couple months ago hurting like hell. I wrote it off to stress, waited for it to go away. It started to, then again, in the middle of the night, I wake up and it hurts so bad I have trouble breathing. Two weeks later it just disappears, overnight. And then creeps back three days later. I’ve been on large doses of ibuprofin for a week now, which sometimes helps and sometimes does nothing at all. And makes me nervous, since it’s not a drug you want to take continuously for more than two weeks. It can cause kidney damage. Yay.

Thursday morning I spoke to the Bossman on the phone and he said he couldn’t make the group health coverage work. The pain meds also weren’t working that day, so I hang up with him and (being the only one in the office at that point) promptly lose my shit. I called David at work and sobbed into the phone for five minutes (which I still feel bad about). I couldn’t reach my Mom. In the back of my head I was really afraid that the pain meds had simply stopped working, period.

So, research. There’s CHIP, but since it’s a high-risk pool (in order to qualify you have to have been already rejected by a private carrier), the premiums are ungodly. I discuss this with the Bossman — he wants to keep me around, so offers to help with the premiums, if it comes to that. Whew. But I have to have been rejected in the last 9 months, so I’m researching private carriers again, to apply for one on Monday.

I expect to be declined, of course, but for the moment am pretending I won’t be, on the far-off-chance that they’re actually willing to cover me, since it would be a better deal all around if they would. And this crap is confusing, I don’t fully understand it, am wondering if I can assume that trying to run down whatever this is that makes me hurt is going to cost enough that having a $2600 deductible with full coverage after will cost less than the $1000 deductible with 80% coverage. And co-pays, co-insurance, out-of-pocket maximum, seem to mean something less obvious than what I’d think they’d mean, since the out-of-pocket is a different number than the deductible… blah blah blah. And I can’t even believe that I’m thinking in terms of how many thousands of dollars I’m going to have to spend.

I am lost. I am trying to approach this rationally and evenly, but I fucking hurt, and I don’t dare see a doctor for this until the insurance is sorted out, since I expect it will be hard to figure out which translates into lots of expensive testing and at least a few expensive specialists. Worry and fear gnaw at the edges of my mind, much as I try to shove it away. What if it’s serious? What if there’s already permanent damage? What if there’s no way to fix it and I have to live with the pain for the rest of my life? What if it’s terminal?

Battling demons this afternoon, visions of a spinal tumor, of radiation and chemo, of constant nausea and vomiting, of watching my hair fall out. Flashbacks to Grandma Anne’s last days in the hospital. We were visiting. The chemo made her throw up. I couldn’t watch, so I went to the hallway and cried. How old was I? Eight?

I worry too much. I tell myself this. But I am still afraid.