Prior to last week, I thought that I was a healthy young man who could live without health insurance for the time being. I was wrong. I have not been as sick as I was last week since the winter of 2003 when the ship that I was aboard was underway in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. My illness on the USS La
Salle was directly due to seasickness. The rough waters tossed that old ship around and I was feeling
nauseous and vomitting for days. I had always felt nauseous during deployments, but that was the worst deployment ever for me. To this day, a cruise will never be my idea of a dream vacation. I will avoid that like the plague.
My illness last week initially seemed trivial. On Monday, I started developing a sore throat. The next day, I purchased Ricola cough drops and began taking them. The last sore throat that I had was a month ago. I treated it with those cough drops and it was gone in a couple of days. However, this time that did not happen. I had taken those cough drops for three days and my condition worsened. I throat had become very dry. I noticed swelling in the back of my mouth and began sensing an acute pain in my upper neck. It was really painful for me to speak, eat, or drink. Opening my mouth brought me to tears. I was rudely awakened by the excrutiating pain in my throat for the second straight night. In addition to my sore throat, I was experiencing congestion in my nasal cavity and fever. By then I was on Sudafed, Aspirin, and Lozenges, but there was no improvement. I forced myself to slurp watered-down hot cereal, yogurt, and soup for sustenance. My condition seemed to worsen by the hour.
I noticed that there was more swelling and redness in the back of my mouth. Any activity that involved opening my mouth or swallowing was an excrutiating ordeal. I finally decided on Wednesday that it was all that I could bear and that I did not have the expertise or training to treat myself. I searched the Internet for local medical clinics. I called them up and struggled to request an appointment. Most of the clinics that I called told me that their doctors were seeing new patients. One of them even told me to try back in two months. The receptionist at the community hospital transferred me to voice mail. It was almost 5:00 in the afternoon when I reached a private clinic 15 miles away that was seeing patients on walk-in basis and was open until 8:00. I felt as if I had hit the jackpot as I rushed over there.
I was so excited about being able to see an M.D. who would explain my condition and prescribe something to make all this pain go away. When I arrived, the receptionist had me fill out paperwork and pay $120 up front since I didn't have health insurance. A few minutes later, the medical assistant weighed me and took my blood pressure and temperature. I struggled in answering questions about my condition as speaking involved opening my mouth and subjecting myself to further pain. When the doctor arrived, she asked me more questions then proceeded to observe my breathing with her stethoscope and looked in my mouth. She took a swap sample of the back of my throat to test it for streptococcus, bacteria that cause strep throat. She said that she would have the result in five minutes.
When she returned, she told me that it was not strep throat that I had. I felt a bit better until she said that my throat did not look "impressive" to her, meaning that it was only minor. I felt stupid for making a big fuss over my pain. I struggled to utter that the back of my mouth was swelling and that this had gone on for three days, but she wasn't moved. I asked her why there was swelling. She nonchalantly answered that it was only my lymph nodes. I wanted to shout at her or at least question her some more, but my throat was aching so badly, and speaking was so hard for me. I asked if there was anything that she could prescribe. She said that I was right in taking the over-the-counter medication and even suggested that I could take twice the recommended dosage on the label. She also said that Advil could also be taken for my pain. I was a bit relieved that the M.D. didn't think much of my throat condition. It didn't seem right to me due to my immense pain and suffering, but she was the one with the M.D. I was disappointed that she didn't write me a precription, adequately answer my questions, or seem to empathize.
I started taking twice the dosage as she suggested for the next couple of days. Doubling the dosage seemed to only worsen my fever. There was no improvement whatsoever. The swelling was bigger than ever and my throat was dry like a desert. I started coughing as soon as I tried to drink water. Any movement in my mouth was more painful than ever. I could only sleep for a couple hours at a time throughout the day. On Friday night, I could not fall asleep due to the immense pain. I drove myself to the emergency room at the community hospital. I should have done that instead of seeing that quack the other day. I was reticent to go to the ER because I didn't think that my condition was exigent. I decided to go anyway because I did not see any other way to stop the pain and suffering. The swelling in my throat was obstructing the opening of my esophagus. Furthermore, my left ear was now especially sensitive to the slightest sounds. I had spent a small fortune on over-the-counter medication and an incompetent doctor and my condition never improved. It only worsened.
It was a good thing that I had gone to the ER that night. The doctor and nurse were proficient, empathetic, and helpful. By then, talking was most excrutiating. My speech was impaired. I communicated with the nurse mainly by nodding, gesturing, and writing. The doctor performed all of the tasks that the other doctor performed, only he did it with more care. He answered my questions thoroughly and explained things to me. When he told me that the swab test for streptococcus was negative, he added that a fast test for strep throat may often be a false negative and that he will request a culture test for me. He told me that what I had was most likely a viral infection due to the swelling of my tonsils and pain in my ear. He prescribed Penicillin should the culture test positive. He also prescribed Hydrocodone for the pain, and Dexamethasone for the swelling. The nurse started me on the medication. That night, I was able to sleep through dawn.
I woke up feeling significantly better. The pain had diminished. After brushing my teeth, I suddenly began coughing. I was coughing up blood. I was perturbed and rushed to the ER. There was now a different doctor and nurse on duty. The doctor explained that the blood was from the lysis of my cyst. He doubled the dosage for my prescription of Penicillin and sent me on my way. I've been on the medication for less than 24 hours and already feeling so much better. The swelling is almost entirely gone and my throat is not as dry and sore as before. Swallowing and talking are not nearly as painful as before. I still feel a bit of pain in my throat from the dryness, but that's about it.
I have not received my bills from the ER visits. I am sure that I will pay a handsome fortune, but such is the case when one does not have health insurance in this country. I am fortunate that I have a credit card that charges a low rate of interest. I have great pity for those who need to pay their medical bills for surgery or hospitalization with credit cards that charge high rates of interest.
One would think that a country that has the best hospitals, staffed with the best doctors in the world, would have a better health care system for its people--a system that makes it possible for those seeking medical care to have access at the onset of their illness rather than that the peak of their illness. It's irrational that a country that is spending billions and billions of dollars policing a civil war in the Middle East in order to "spread freedom and democracy" does not have a system in place to provide for the well-being of its own. That is why there are over 47 million Americans without health insurance.
That is why I believe in universal health care. Health is one of the most important things in life. Mandating health care would be an improvement to the welfare of Americans and thus beneficial to the government. Without health insurance, a person would not have access to cheaper preventative care or medical attention from the onset of an illness. He would need to wait until his condition is critical and get costly emergency care. His medical bills would either be paid for by credit card or by those with health insurance in the form of higher premiums. This is wrong for the patient and wrong for the insured.
Uninsured patients are a burden to the health care system the same way that uninsured motorists are to everyone on the roads or unvaccinated children on the playground. They raise the cost for everybody. If health insurance were mandated, the cost of health care would be spread out and lowered. Everyone would be responsible for his own health costs. There would be more preventative care and routine medical visits and fewer emergency visits. I don't have an M.D., but I know that it would be more effective and economical to treat an infection from the onset than to do so at the height of an infection. Furthermore, treating an infection early on will limit the spread of infection onto the rest of the population. I believe that everybody wins with universal health care--everybody except for credit card companies and HMOs.
Some might say that mandating health insurance unfairly taxes people who can not afford health insurance. My ordeal last week has proven to me that everyone needs health care. Everyone will find himself in need of medical attention at some point in his life. If the federal government mandates Social Security and the state government mandates auto insurance, why would it be unfair to require that everyone have health insurance? Not everyone will live long enough to receive Social Security benefits, but everyone will be ill at some point in his life. Viral or bacterial infections could happen to anyone and at anytime. Why not have a system in place that will reduce the cost of treatment and limit the spread of the infection? When people are healthy, they are less likely to call in-sick. Moreover, a worker in good health would be more productive than an ailing worker. Having more people working productively is of great benefit to employees, employers, and the government. For the government, a more productive work force would yield higher tax revenues.
Others may think that universal health care means uniform health care. They think that government involvement in health care would result in inferior service. Nothing could be further from the truth. Is academics at a public university inferior to academics at a private university? In my opinion, when people who are in need are not able to get the services that they need until it's too late, when hospitals are dumping patients on Skid Row, or when health care administrators and HMOs make medical decisions and deny treatment recommended by doctors; there is something wrong with the system. It is problematic when one needs to go to the ER to receive adequate medical attention. It is the government's duty to step in and do something to rectify injustice and inefficiencies. If the government were to leave the funding of childhood vaccines entirely up to parents, poor children would not get vaccinated and disease would be widespread and the population is left worse off. If there were no public schools, children from poor families would not be able to afford an education and more likely turn to crime.
Universal health care would enable patients to make their own medical decisions based on the advisement of their doctors. To work properly, a universal health care plan must provide several options for the population. At the very least, everyone should have minimal health care coverage. Nobody is safe from infections or accidents. Those wanting or requiring more medical services would pay higher premiums. People may choose to buy the government offered health insurance or a private health insurance. With universal health care, we could build a stronger defense against infectious diseases and the country would be better off. Universal health care is an investment with extensive and immeasurable benefits.
I have learned many things from this ordeal. Many of the things that happened to me last week affirmed my convictions that health is one of the most important things in life, health care reform is needed in America, and that I am truly committed to becoming a health care professional. I have also learned that questioning authority may be necessary and that no one knows your body as well as you do. A wise woman once stated "Pain is the warning that something's wrong." I could not agree more.
Labels: medicine health care insurance strep throat streptococcus
