the staggering cost of receiving medical treatment–is it worth it?

Let me be brutally honest here. I have a list of physical ailments and corresponding medications and therapies needed to deal with them that is a mile long. With situations ranging from heart failure and coronary artery disease to diabetes to numerous herniated discs in my neck and back to kidney failure to liver problems along with skin issues; I have little choice but to try and survive on my paltry $600 disability I receive monthly from Social Security.

My life is spent going to one doctor, therapist or procedure after another. My money is spent on various drugs needed to somewhat keep all the various conditions under control along with the co-pays and deductibles for all the visits and drugs. Just yesterday I say 4 doctors in one day and spent $100 in co-pays alone. My wife also had a physical problem yesterday which resulted in her seeing the doctor. The final bill for co-pays alone came to $125. She made $130 working over 8 hours yesterday.

Now granted, yesterday was somewhat unusual since I had two doctor visits that only come up every three months, but when an entire day’s earnings are used up just visiting doctors—Houston, we have a problem. Due to the treatment regimen needed to deal with my back and neck problems, I must see the Chiropractor/therapist/medical doctor three times per week for the next few weeks. This is a $100 per week commitment. To get the prescriptions filled to relieve pain and speed the healing process cost another $50. The gas to make the drives cost another $60.

We recently had to make the yearly decision as to taking the high or low option on insurance through my wife’s employer. The basic difference came down to whether the insurance would pay 70% (low option) or 80% (high option) and whether co-pays would be $35 (low option) or $30 (high option) for doctor’s visits. The difference in price for high vs. low was an incredible $45 per week. In other words it was going to take $45 more per week to get insurance to pay 10% more of the bills.

We, as usual, chose the low option with a $40 medical re-imbursement option. Even choosing this package, the cost per week is $85. Some would say that is a small price to pay to have decent insurance; I would say that we are thankful to have the coverage, but…

If I had to go in the hospital for any of my various maladies, I would be responsible for a $300 per day co-pay and then insurance would only pay 70% of the cost of all things done while in the hospital. A one week stay in the hospital would cost a staggering $3,000 or more probably. Needless to say, I avoid any trips to the hospital like the plague.

I put off getting a bridge put in my mouth for a year. This is the third of four needed bridges. Since insurance only pays a fraction of the cost, I was left to pay the rest. Last week, an astounding $4,500 was charged to my Care Credit account to pay for a major bridge, a crown and other needed work. Last year a similar bridge “only” cost about $3,500 which was slowly being paid off. I am now maxed out on this account so I can only pray for no more emergencies.

I had to get the truckload of mail order prescriptions filled last week. The bill was just under $500. Trying to find the means to pay all these bills along with everything else is frustrating and a lesson in how people end up hopelessly in debt. Even if there were no other obligations, staying on top of numerous and varied medical conditions ends up eating all available funds plus more. Yes, things like Care Credit help with Dental and Veterinary bills (a staggering sum to care for our sick dog which recently passed away), and hospitals will set up payment plans at times for big bills. But they also want you to cash in retirement accounts and drain savings plans also.

Everyone talks about the reason people like my wife and I are in the dire straits we are in financially is due to our irresponsibility concerning finances. They say because I am lazy and won’t go find a job and insist on being sick all the time we are in the mess we are in. Here is my question to those who blame me for all our woes. Should I, as Jimmy Stewart tried to do in “It’s a Wonderful Life” go jump off a bridge and at least end the constant draw on finances my ailments bring? Should I hope to get killed in an accident on the Interstate so my wife can collect from a couple of accidental death insurance policies I have? Am I to try, at almost 56 years of age to find work knowing I cannot faithfully show up and do the job?

One of the doctors I was at yesterday was in a foul mood. I was ten minutes late due the previous doctor talking on the phone for fifteen minutes with his financial broker. The doctor in the foul mood spent all of five minutes with me and was obviously upset for I was his last patient before leaving at 10:30 in morning. I could hear him complaining as the nurse did the pre-work about patients not respecting the doctor’s valuable time. I should have walked out then and there. How many times have I waited for hours on a doctor hopelessly behind schedule.

If I could survive without medical care, I would. If I could survive without prescription drugs, I would. If I could guarantee an employer I could and would show up daily to work and do the job without being in a drug fog, excruciating pain or having to leave to go to doctor visits three times per week, I would. Since I can’t, what else can I do but what I do?

I hate being a physical liability to not only my wife but society. Should I move to Oregon and ask to end this life? Am I to sit in front of stores with a can asking for alms? Am I to ignore all my medical conditions and let them slowly kill me? I wish those who quickly condemn some of us for the situations we are in would honestly look at what got us in them instead of blasting us with their self righteous and pompous sermons about responsibility.

Adventures in Sleep Apnea, CPAP and Sleep Doctors

So I go to the Sleep Doctor today to go over the results of a sleep study done earlier in the month. He proceeds to tell me it is the worst case of sleep apnea he has ever seen. In the three hours of deep sleep I had that night, I quit breathing 167 times. He said I had all the different kinds of apnea known to medical science.

This is nothing new to me. I had sleep studies done in 1997 and 2000 which both showed the same results. Both times attempts were made to fit me with a CPAP mask and I “freaked out” due to longstanding claustrophobia. Both of the previous times I was told I had to overcome the phobia or face certain premature death.

Due to a dramatic increase in physical problems over the past year, my cardiologist suggested I have another sleep study done. Thus the reason for the current test. If you have never endured a sleep study, consider yourself blessed. Electrical leads are placed all over your head and jaws and forehead and EKG leads are on the chest. Somehow you are supposed to sleep with enough wires attached to your head to cause Frankenstein to run in fear.

My main problem is that periodically when I sleep, my brain forgets to tell the lungs to breath. This is extremely troubling since breathing is supposed to be an involuntary activity. We do not sit around all day telling ourselves to breath. We just do it and never think about it unless we have a cold or other disease. It is very disconcerting to think that while sleeping, my brain ‘forgets” to send a message to the lungs to breath.

When we stop breathing, the body goes into panic state. Hormones are released which cause the heart to beat rapidly so the body saves itself. This is what shocks the lungs into breathing. The problem is the damage to the whole body repeated episodes of apnea have when repeated night after night. It is no wonder that I fight edema (fluid retention), loss of kidney function and inability to lose weight even on a very restricted diet. These, along with various heart problems, are classic symptoms of bad sleep apnea.

Now that I know how bad my situation is, I must wait a month until the next available opening in the sleep lab to repeat the study as the techs there try to fit me with various masks. To combat panic, I will have to take a heavy dose of a nerve relaxing medication. Oh boy, I look forward to that night with great anticipation.

I understand that I must do what needs to be done to compensate for this problem in my body. As much as I don’t want to endure the night of fittings and the hassle of sleeping with a machine helping me breath each night; I understand the consequences and accept that I must at least try to do what has been suggested. It is a bitter pill to swallow, but sometimes that is just the way life goes.

I sat with my elderly mother in a sleep doctor’s office a few years ago. She had had a sleep study done and it evidently was as bad as mine. She too could not handle the CPAP mask. The sleep doctor told her in no uncertain terms that either she figured out a way to handle the CPAP or she would die within a year or two. She did try the CPAP as much as she could handle. She died a little under two years from the time she saw the sleep doctor.

Since I don ‘t want to go through what my mom did, I must resign myself to doing what I have no desire to do and that is learn to sleep using the CPAP. Due to sinus problems I cannot handle the nice new nasal CPAP devices. This is too bad for they are much easier to deal with. Oh well, there are worse things to deal with in life.