~$105.00

“Now you will have something to blog about,” said my lovely wife as we waited to take the turn in the Emergency Room parking lot at 8:25 pm on Sunday. My response at the time was heavily influenced by my lack of hydration. “I will never blog about this.”

After four hours in the ER in Southern New Jersey and a few days of felling pretty much like death-hung-over I decided it was time to find a teachable moment here within my food poising. Once again, my lovely wife was right.

Here is the timeline:

Friday night – Eat Evil Food Never to be Consumed Again
Saturday morning – Feel not so hot; consume Gater-aid and pepto and hope for the best as we leave to go to our friend’s wedding in South Jersey.
Saturday night – Attend rehearsal dinner; feeling a bit better; ate stupid food for my condition, goes way down hill very fast
Sunday morning – Sick like dog
Sunday afternoon – Get ready for wedding; a sudden and dramatic change in condition that makes me worried
Sunday night – Condition unchanged; Go to Hospital
Sunday night/Monday EARLY morning – Enjoy two lovely bags of IV drip, get tests taken, find out not much, given meds, sent to Pharmacy, get drugs, go back to hotel and sleep.
Monday – SICK, travel back to NYC, sit on couch, sleep
Tuesday – SICK, see doc, he said ER was right
Wednesday – Back to something that could be considered human

Ok, now you know what happened. Needless to say it was a tough few days.

(Quick sidebar: My wife was 100% supportive, holding my hand when it sucked (it sucked a lot), laughed at my really pathetic jokes, made me feel better and helped me make the right choices about the care I needed throughout this process and I would have been totally screwed without her help. Thank you honey.)

I am blessed to have a great job where I am challenged every day, where I have to work hard, think in and outside the box and a lot is demanded of me both personally and professionally. However in exchange for this commitment my employer has supplied me with, among other things, fantastic health insurance.

This insurance that I got because I work for a fantastic company, allows me to walk into any ER when I need to go and get treated with a co-pay of $60. I was prescribed two sets of pills each costing $10 and were filled right away at 1:45 am on Monday. I saw my Doctor on Tuesday for $25. After not being able to eat or drink for two days, I was treated in two facilities, was given what I needed and now I am on the track to being healthy again for a grand total of about $105.

If I didn’t work for a fantastic company, I would be broke now, possibly in debt for years. But I am not because I have a wonderful job and a fantastic company.

So we reinforce in my story, the story of a very well off young white man who ate some very evil food and got what he needed quickly and manageable cost, the need for a national healthcare system. The care I received should not be a privilege of my job, my status or my checkbook.

I am so lucky to have been in the situation I was after eating the evil food. Who knows what would have happened if I was one of the millions of people out of work across this country when I made a poor choice for dinner.

So all five of you reading this blog: the time is now to act. Call you people in DC and demand action. There can be no more excuses from the right wing nuts jobs. Stand up to the stupidity and demand a reasonable, logical and useful healthcare system in our country. The President called upon Congress tonight and I call upon all five of you now.