Yet another medical saga, and insurance

Sometimes I think I might be a hypochondriac, because it seems like I have more weird and somewhat serious medical issues crop up than other people I know. I use my self-awareness of this to tell myself that it's all real, and that I'm not a hypochondriac, rather I'm just not the healthiest girl. Which would stand to reason if you knew about my lifestyle.

It all started in college, with "the gremlin." Somewhat suddenly, I was throwing up just about everything I ate. Wednesday night pizza and beer at Woodstock's in Isla Vista was particularly egregious, and there was a tree I would always duck behind on the walk home to retch. It became so commonplace, I didn't even blink. Well, the condition of my tummy got so bad that a roommate demanded I go to the emergency room. At the time, I was in so much pain I couldn't stand up all the way. She was probably right about the need to seek treatment, but I tend to avoid doctors like the plague (see, I told you I'm not a hypochondriac). After a little morphine, I felt all better. After six months of no alcohol or greasy food, the gremlin had been healed considerably. It has never totally gone away, though. Mostly I just ignore it now, except fo those times it hurts so badly I just moan and try to go to sleep.

Last year, in May, my right calf went numb. Then my thigh. Then, as the feeling would come back at the lower end of this numbness, the feeling would move higher. A numb half-belly feels really weird. Rex's dad is an MD, so a phone call to him revealed that this could be nothing normal or ok. Again, I protested a trip to the ER in a way that you might have thought Rex was trying to remove my fingernails with rusty pliers. Until the right half of my tongue went numb. It's hard to be convincing if you sound like a drunk retard. To the ER we went. I got scared enough by the time we were checking in with the triage nurse and my speech center went wonky. In the exam room, I lost the ability to speak certain sounds, "thank you" would come out only as "yank you," no matter how hard I tried. It looked like a stroke, and a trip to the ER was probably well-advised.

It wasn't a stroke, just an "aura migraine," unusual only for the severity of the aura symptoms. Auras usually present as mild visual disturbances, and they'd never seen anything quite like mine. So they sent me for a CT scan and an MRI, plus trips to the neurologist. Two grand later, I was pronounced just fine. That two grand, however, will haunt me for around five years, because that's how long it will take me to pay it off at $30 a month, which is still more than I can afford.

Don't you have insurance?, I hear you asking. Well, yes'm I do. With a $3000 deductible. That renews each year. I have zero coverage until I meet the deductible, be it for perscription drugs, office visits, or something that looks like a stroke. So the two grand falls entirely on me to pay. This is the kind of insurance someone like me can afford (actually, my dad pays for it. I would be uninsured if he didn't. And it ain't cheap).

Two things just converged that caused me to write this rather long diatribe. One, as you might have guessed from the title, is that something else has gone awry with little Parepare. The other is the revelation from a New York Times article that women are paying more for health insurance than men. And the reasons are not entirely clear. This more expensive coverage does not include maternity care, which would at least account for the disparity. Anthem, my insurer, is listed as being one of the major offenders. Women with Anthem in Columbus OH (the example cited) pay 49% more than men in the same age group, and the disparities are worse for young women. Being a young woman who is barely insured, and at that can't afford health care, this makes me so mad really I'm just disappointed. Because really, are we surprised? No. We know that the system is totally f***ed. But this should be illegal. We can't discriminate based on race, but sex? Sure, go right ahead. That's progress.

So, in the shadow of this knowledge, I just made an appointment for a breast core biopsy, because I have a fibroadenoma in my right breast. A fibroadenoma is a lump very common in young women (particularly my age bracket) that is almost always benign. So it's really just a lump that's more annoying than anything. But because of the severity of cancer, since there is a remote chance that the lump is cancerous, fibroadenomas are nearly always biopsied or removed. Mine shall be biopsied in a procedure that will have me out of commission for 24 hours, and guess what? I get to pay for it all with the riches I have from being a law student for 2 1/2 years. My insurance does not cover this sort of treatment (though the guy at Anthem enthusiastically told me that they cover 100% once I reach the deductible!). I chose the less expensive biopsy option, which will mean I'll still have the lump. But I'll know it's a nothing lump. And I'll get to remember that fact every month when I get the bill, asking for another $30. I just hope they don't raise my monthly payments with addition of the new charges. That would really hurt.