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I feel sick.

Michael considered fate at 02:21   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

Crap.

I wrote a long post last night. Really long. It involved me possibly loosing my testicle. It involved long waits in emergency rooms. It involved lots of run-away hypocondriac thoughts of testicular torsion.. it involved jelly on my balls.

Clearly blogger has eaten it. Fuckers. FUCKERS. I was feeling horrible about not posting and now, I feel even more horrible cause my testicle is fucking sore.. but now I feel even more horrible because when I got home from the emergency room at 2AM I sat down to write all of you a big long post about my experiences and it got eaten. All this even though I had an assignment due this morning, a class at 10AM, and I was supposed to be at the hospital again at 8AM.

Garbage.

I'd give you all advice right here about how you should always have health insurance but in the end you'll get screwed over somehow. I've had health insurance my entire life.. through my parents all the way through college and then through my job for the last three years. 13 days ago - THIRTEEN measly days ago - that insurance expired. Due to a loophole in the McGill University health insurance system I slipped through the cracks and was not automatically signed up for student health insurance like most people (due to the fact that I'm canadian but have no provincial health care cause I live in the states). So in the end, after 26 years of health coverage and not much more than a visit to the doctor for the flu here and there (and only then at the insistence of my parents) I am uncovered and... my testicle swells up, gets sore, and puts me in the emergency room.

Normally I wouldn't even go to the emergency room. In fact, the last time I went I was about 2 years old and I needed stiches from careening off of a footlocker into the corner of a brick, softening the blow with my head. I have a vague recollection of reaching up and feeling a big bloody dent in my head but, I digress. I hate the emergency room. Mostly cause I think 90% of "emergencies" aren't that at all. I wish people would just suffer a little more. It's good for them. Wait till the morning. Make an appointment. Cripes, and we wonder why health care is so expensive. Anyhow, I did some research on the internet and, being familiar with testicular torsion because my friend had it once, I thought it was a possible explaination for my woes. When I read this, though, I got a little worried:

"If caught within 6 hours a testicular torsion can be operated on and the testicle can be saved. Longer than that and the success rate falls drastically"

I'd been living with this pain for two days. I was petrified. I knew it was going to cost a lot to go to the emergency room and you all know I'm a cheap cheap bastard, but I had to do the math. What is a testicle worth? I know I got two, and like an old WWII bomber plane I could limp home on one engine if I had to but, come on.. I'm only 26.. do I want to be limping home for 40 or 50 years? In the end I placed the worth of my testicle at around $10,000. It's a lot of money but I figure the pleasure that one testicle gives me is worth more than that over my lifetime.. even if it is the right testicle (my left is my favourite one by far).

So in the end it was $420 for the hospital fee. Yes, that is right... out of pocket, $420. This is just to have the pleasure of sitting in their waiting room for 4 hours (there were all of 4 other people waiting for those 4 hours, by the way..). The doctor's fee is extra. Luckily my doctor (a cute asian chick who, if she'd been doing something other than poking at my sore testicle, would have been fairly appealing to me) was understanding of my insurance situation and "cut me a deal".. like the hospital is a flea market or something and we're hammering out a price. $50 in the end, not so bad for an ultrasound and getting to wear one of those cute hospital gowns (I do look so sexy in them). I figure they wasted three towels and two sheets in the ultrasound room, another in the emergency room, and a gown. The laundry cost alone.. god, I got a bargain.

After the ultrasound showed I was getting good blood flow to my boys and that there was not any testicular torsion the bargain started not to look so hot when they told me they wanted me to stay overnight for a proper ultrasound in the morning. Proper? Oh, you mean one by a real doctor, not a 3rd year resident. Fine fine, but I ain't staying over I told them. Uh uh. No way. $420 for a visit, I don't even want to know what an overnight stay is.. Plus, considering I live a 5 minute walk away from the hospital why bother?

In the end I skipped the visit this morning. The urologist left a message on my machine sounding urgent in that "Hey man, you're my cash cow" sort of way. I dunno, maybe I'll stop by and see him.. if he is lucky.

I think the weirdest part of the whole night was paying the doctor in cash in the hallway of the emergency room. Is this how you guys do things around here?!? She actually asked me "Do you have cash?". I was skeptical, but I didn't ask questions. She gave me a receipt so I figured she was scamming the system, even if she was cutting me a deal.

A deal?

What is this, a used car lot?

Oh well. I shouldn't complain. I still have both my testicles.