Back in April I fell, sprained my ankle, and tore ligaments in my knee. Putting weight down on my knee made it buckle sideways, which scared the hell out of me. I know I overreacted but it had never happened before, and no one could give me a straight answer as to what was wrong, so I agreed to go get X-rayed.
It's now been 2 months and I've received 3 separate bills. The following is exactly what's wrong with our health care system.
Bill #1: Emergency Room Visit
Call me irresponsible, but I actually find this bill so ridiculous that I have no idea where it is. I actually lost the damn thing. Whatever. They'll send me another soon enough. Not like I'm going to pay the stupid thing any time soon.
The best way I can explain my trip to the Emergency Room is like visiting a low contact, high price brothel. The whores there don't want to touch you. They will only do just enough to ensure you have to pay them. They're also secretive ninjas who don't bother to tell you how much every thing they do is going to cost.
The first thing that happened, aside from the never ending wait and getting to watch a giant black guy in the process of either OD'ing or going through withdrawal, was getting my blood pressure taken and getting weighed. This was fun. It marks the first time I was asked to explain how I felt via number and smiley face. It was also the moment I realized the Republicans were dead wrong about the quality of our health care system dropping once we switch to universal health care. No matter how badly the government eventually destroys our nation's hospitals, you can sink no lower than asking a large bearded man to describe the pain in his knee via emoticon. For the record, my answer was :/
After the weighing debacle (I call it a debacle because my hyper intelligent hospital desk jockey couldn't seem to grasp the fact that I, not being able to walk, wasn't able to simply step up onto a raised scale.) I was wheeled into the back, left in the hallway, and ignored for another 10 minutes. In front of me sat two blond, tan valley girls in lab coats. This depressed and frightened me. Having nothing better to do, I listened into their conversation. "I definitely think I'm tanner than you." This depressed and frightened me more. I stopped listening.
After a while one of the valley girls seemed to decide it was time to get to work and approached me. She informed me that she was a med student and would be asking me a few questions. I found myself unable to remember what my sign was. I prayed this wouldn't be one of the questions. I was in luck.
She asked me what the problem was and what I was here for. Then, producing the same chart as the desk jockey, which I have dubbed "The Evolution of a Smiley" she asked me to describe the pain in my knee. She was considerably hotter than DJ, so I manned up and changed my answer from :/ to :I. I was a man. I could take it.
After many scribbles that seemed much to long and frequent to be ":I" she began poking, moving my knee, ankle, and foot. With each new prod she asked "Does this hurt?" And with each new test, the level of pain increased. For a second I started to wonder if she knew I was a masochist. I started to get turned on so I shoved that from my mind and concentrated on the EoaS chart. After a while she got up, told me she didn't think it was serious but that she was sending me in to get X-rayed anyway.
Then her less tan, equally blond colleague came over and gave the exact same intro. Followed by the exact same questions. Followed by the exact same physical tests. Surely they were fucking with me. I prayed they were anyway. If not, I was stuck in the ditsiest time loop the world has ever seen.
Soon I found myself being wheeled off to the X ray room. But I will save that story for the X-ray Bill.
Cost of getting felt up and interrogated by the sickest joke God has ever played? $2020
Bill # 2 X rays!
Sadly there were no smiley faces in the X Ray room. Not on charts, not on posters, and definably not on the two X Ray technicians. I did however get a surly eastern European head technician whom I've affectionately dubbed "Borris" and a slightly feminine assistant of indeterminable ethnicity who I've named "Raymondo."
"Borris" spent the entire time in his little X Ray proof bunker barking orders at his man whore while I tried to not move the paper lining of the bed as I got into position. I don't know why. It's a habit of mine.
Like the Double mint Twins, I think Raymondo was fucking with me. Borris never seemed happy with the shot Raymondo lined up, and it was clear that it was beginning to wear on Ray Ray's nerves. Maybe he was using me to blow off some steam but he turned me into his own personal poseable doll. "Get on your side." "Put your leg forward." "Lift it just a little bit" "Okay turn your ankle inward."
That's why the damn X Ray blasting machine moves and swivels!
It's okay, because I played along. I put my head up on my hand, did elaborate poses with my arms, and considered arching my back and giving Raymondo "Come hither" eyes. Maybe my bill would have been cheaper if I did, but there was a certain aura of feminism and sex kittenism in Raymondo and I didn't want to risk it. I was after all taken at the time.
I may have missed an opportunity to score some hott doctor ass, but I did summon my courage and ask something that I've always wondered. "What is this little lead square for exactly?"
"It protects your balls from the X Rays."
I slid the square back down. It had moved up a bit while moving into a new pose.
Cost of posing for mystery boy and permanent birth control? $86
Bill #3 Professional Fees
Nervous and unsure about my nuts' futures, I was wheeled back into my hallway and greeted by The Tandem Tanners. (TM)
With them was a large goateed man who seemed very jolly. Pedephelia-ly so. He was giving awkward back massages to the med students and a random black woman who was sweet enough to pad up my crutches. They looked violated. He on the other hand looked as if he had just came.
When he'd had enough bad touching and polite requests to stop, Colonel Fondles turned his attention to me. He told me that I tore tendons in my knee and sprained my ankle and that he would be bandaging me up.
He had me extend my leg, placing my foot between his legs, and began taping up my ankle.
Now for those of you who don't know, I'm kinda twitchy. I can't go very long without twitching my toes or rubbing my pinky and ring fingers together. I don't know why. But I do know that my toes were an inch max away from what I imagine were his goateed genitals, and if I didn't learn some self control soon I would either have a new boyfriend or a new scar on my head.
With a whole lot of luck and monk-like restraint, I managed to avoid tickling Colonel Fondle's fancy. I said my good byes and wheeled my happy ass out of that hospital before something else traumatizing happened.
Cost of sitting silently and fighting to keep my toes away from a large man's taint? $402.75
Even if you ignore the fact that the privilege of sitting inside a hospital and playing with smiley faces costs many times more than having potentially lethal (genitally and other wise) energy waves shot into your body, its easy to see that health care in this country is insanely and needlessly expensive. None of the treatment I received couldn't have been found walking up and down Coconut Creek at night with a 50.
Anyone blessed with the gift of a brain knows that I owe $2508.75 for getting felt up and interrogated by med students. While I'm sure that qualifies as a good time for some of you sick fucks out there, I prefer a reach around if I'm going to be charged for getting ass raped. It's common courtesy. And this sum doesn't even include the fees they're sure to tack on as there is no way I am going to be able to pay these bills any time soon.
The bitch of it is now my knee feels :'(
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment