My REALLY Big SCARE

I had quite a scare today and it, unfortunately, is something more and more people are going to experience. After George was laid off, we lost all insurance. He was able to go onto Medicare, but I remain uninsured because our Teapotty Governor is refusing to participate in the Federal Program.

Well, after a particular difficult BM due to excessive cramping....I have enough sense not to strain after almost needing surgery for hemorrhoids, I suddenly experienced pain to the nth degree in my chest and down both arms. I could barely function and I have a high pain tolerance.

At this point, you might say, “Dial 911!” All I could think of was the $10,000.00 or more a visit to the ER costs for 'chest pains”.

As I was lying on the bed in too much pain to do anything but whimper with both arms going numb, I burped a tiny bit. Okay, I am going to chance this as I do not have $10,000.00, so I lie there as the pain gets more and more intense and my left hand goes completely numb.

Finally I manage to almost crawl out to the kitchen and get George to give me an aspirin, just in case and right now it is looking like a bad outcome. I cannot afford $20,000.00 for a heart attack. Cremation is much cheaper. George fixed me an Alka Seltzer to go with the aspirin and a little more gas came up.

I am now approaching ten minutes and the pain is worsening but a little more gas comes up which might be due to fizz portion of the plop, plop commercial. I decide to lie down before I fall down.

By fifteen minutes, both arms are numb, the pain about 6 inches below my neck in my back is excruciating and George fixes me a glass of baking soda and water. After that, a huge burp occurs and I think I might live but at twenty minutes the pain is not one bit less, it is actually getting worse. Curiously enough, I still have not manifested $10,000.00 for chest pains and am too weak to find the Blood Pressure Monitor.

Now at thirty minutes, I have to make a major decision as George is trying to comfort me and it doesn't involve the10 grand I don't have but what to do about the pain. I know that if I am dealing with gas, the hospital will give be a morphine derivative drip and keep me in the ER for 23 hours and 59 minutes until they decide on admission which would not happen because I have no insurance, unless their accounting department discovered I had a paid off home to take in 90 days. I know because back in Insurance Days, I was admitted for gas and a possible infection and that was the procedure. So, I decided to take the one Oxycontin I had squirreled away from my cancer days. Believe it or not, if it relieved the pain it was to a level of not screaming.

An hour later, my left hand is numb, my back is still hurting to where I cannot lie down or sit or stand (irrelevant I'm too weak to stand) but I am fuzzy and miserable.

Four hours later, the pain is still below my neck at my back, my hand is a little numb but useable and I am semi-functional, but I have scrubbed plans for dinner and George is fixing me a nice bowl of fresh flaked organic oatmeal but I am not in debt. I wouldn't give me anything to lift that weighed over a half a pound. I am even drinking my water out of the dreaded plastic cup I bought something in at Costco.

So, here I sit thinking that most of you are one paycheck away from poverty if you aren't one paycheck into poverty. If you are laid off tomorrow, the odds are you will not be able to afford the COBRA to continue your insurance. What are you going to do if a loved one is screaming in agony with chest pains and you know a trip to the ER is going to cost you everything you have spent your life working for and put your entire family into poverty from which you may never emerge?

I know, you are going to dial 911, you think. You really think that, but as I learned today, you are instead going to weigh the possible loss of your life against how everyone is going to survive without a home, in debt to the medical system, no credit and possibly without even a car to get around. A hospital can take all of that for medical debts. Bankruptcy will take all but your home and car in Florida unless you sign papers waiving that right and guess what friends, that clause is in the papers you sign for admission to the hospital. Yes, who reads that super fine print when you think your loved is dying. My friend whose mother was dying didn't and 3 months later, she and her wheelchair were removed from the house she had shared with her mother by the Sheriff, joining her possessions on the front lawn and a possible $500.00 fine for having them there by the city and no possible way to move them with nowhere to go. Your house is auctioned for pennies and all debt is discharged before you collect the nickle that is left....The fact that you are disabled is not excuse in the new Christian Corporate States of America because put simply, you are a useless parasite, anyway.

I hope you never face what I did today and particularly with a child, but the odds are, you will. You will face it with a mother, father or spouse. You will make the choice I did for better or worse. This is what your Congress has given you. What will you give them next year? I really hope for your sake it is an eviction notice. Mortgaging your child's future is irrelevant if you have to bury that child because you just don't have the money to save their life and what kind of future will your children have without you? These are the real questions buried in the cute MEMES and propaganda. Do we all or a select 1% possibly pay a little more in taxes so some of us can survive or do we buy that LOTTO ticket and hope we aren't in the some of us? Which brings me to ask, did you win the state LOTTO? The odds aren't much better in the survival LOTTO.