Sicko. (me)

posted by RICK : 10:57 AM

For the past week I've had the type of sore-throat that I feel compelled to qualify as "THE WORST," which shouldn't be confused with the sentiment, "Dude, I have, like, the worst sore throat." People who say that usually mean, "Dude, the feeling in my throat is inconsistent with how it normally feels, and I find this generally unpleasant."

What makes my brand of throat-pain worse is that it seems to be the lone symptom of my current sickness. No headache. No fever. No Rheumatoid Arthritis. Just a sore-throat (and an ear-ache, but I guess the two are kind of one in the same). Anyway, having JUST a sore-throat is THE WORST because it gives you nothing else to focus on. "Hmmm," you think, "I wonder what its going to feel like when I swallow this bite of Banana-Nut Muffin? Oh! That's right! It's going to feel like eating rusty-tacks and sand!" Sidebar: banana-nut muffins are delicious.

So I'm sick. (Not to be confused with "I'm so sick.")

This has caused me problems in the following ways:

1) We're suppose to move from gorgeous, tree-lined Bushwick, Brooklyn (where everyone knows your name and greets you with a smile on their face) to grungy poor-infested Manhattan (home to the 2x4 with a nail in it to the back of the skull). I'm very excited about this move. The guys with muscles are showing up Sunday morning at 9am to haul over our large items. (I told this to someone at work and they said, "Guys with muscles? Where'd you find them? In a Chelsea bar?" I quickly replied, "I said guys with muscles... not muscle-Ts!" Wow, I'm quite the jokester). This is no time for jokes. My goal all week was to move the smaller stuff residing in our current apartment via suitcases a little bit every night before the actual move. I've done this once since Monday. I have a ton of packing left to do, but it keeps getting put off because I've been spending most (not all, I did watch The Office last night. It was funny) of my time trying to sleep and/or sucking on lozenges attempting to curb the pain. I've also being doing #2.

2) As in this one. #2. C'mon, get your heads out of the gutter you punks! Wednesday night, at the request of loved ones, I decided that I should really try to go see a doctor Thursday morning. I was suppose to work at 1:30pm. After all, I now am a proud beneficiary of corporate health-care.

There is a catch.

I don't understand how any of this stuff works. All I know is that my wallet now holds 2 cards. One will apparently allow me to be treated for a tiny fee, and the other will apparently allow me to be given prescription drugs-- for a tiny fee. There's also some business about CERTAIN physicians I can see and CO-PAYS and DEDUCTIBLES and other things that I am clueless about (they gave us a big packet at work. I've thumbed most of it. Seems, more or less, like a good deal for $8 a week). I perused the healthcare website to try and find a doctor. Assuming I did things correctly it said that there were 3 doctors I could see in Manhattan. Two of them were Chinese. Does this matter? Shouldn't, and yet I didn't call either. And of course, a select few would then point out that I also don't particularly care for Chinese food, but allow me to be very clear: I don't hate Chinese people.

Moving on.

I suspected that this whole doctor business was going to take up most of my pre-work time, so I went to be early (and secretly hoping that over the course of the evening my body would rise up and revolt against the bacteria that has been plaguing me-- hrmm... was the 'plague' bacterial? Note to self: research the plague).

I got up at 6am to call the doctor that the internets suggested I call. No one was in. I called again at 7 and again was greeted with voicemail. Eight-O-clock, the same. Someone DID answer at 9. This was good. I asked if they could fit me in. She said yes. She asked if I had insurance. I said yes. She asked if I knew where they were located. I said, "You're right off 14th street, right?" She said, "No, we moved to the Bronx."

I've never been to the Bronx and I'll be damned if I was going to start today.

My next idea was to put on my coat, my hat, my gloves (and basically the clothes I had been wearing the previous day), leave the apartment, and wander the Brooklyn streets until I found a doctor who would prescribe me medicines.

I went to three places covering about 25 blocks. The first place didn't have a doctor in on Thursdays-- this doesn't really explain why they were open though. The second place was booked until March. I thought that maybe if I was lucky my sore-throat would stick around until then, but figured that it'd just heal itself-- or I'd drop dead wayyyy before hand. The third place was a bit of a mixed blessing. They took my appointment, but they didn't take my insurance. Well, kinda. They wrote down my information, ran it through what I believed to be some kind of punch-card machine, and then told me that I had a $600 deductible. I didn't know what this meant because, like I said, I don't understand insurance. "That's okay," I told them. I mean, my throat hurt! I would have easily traded a pinkie for a bottle of antibiotics.

I sat down in the waiting room for a few minutes and read some New York magazine. Eventually I was called into a room, asked to take off my shirt, and was then placed on a table and had about 12 electrodes stuck to my not-so-hairy-but-hairy-enough chest. They were going to do an E-?-?. My mind kept thinking, "Wait, isn't it your throat?" but I figured these people were DOCTORS and probably could figure it all out. Twenty minutes later the test hadn't been done because the woman couldn't figure out how to get the paper to feed into the printer. "Let's just forget about this one," she said right before ripping the electrodes (and my hair) from my delicate chestal region.

"Now we're going to do an ultrasound on your heart to make sure its functioning properly." I always assumed that being able to walk around, communicate, and make dry, inoffensive remarks also proved that my heart was working properly-- and the fact that I was currently alive. I mean, I don't really know anything about how the human body works, but it seems to me that if your heart isn't working it's probably because you're dead. Though it could also be that you just don't know how to express love very well. Either one, really.

Next, I ended up back in the lobby reading an article on The Strokes. It left me underwhelmed. Eventually I was called to the back to have tests done on my hearing and balance. It was a lot like primary school. I sat in a booth with headphones on listening for the beep, and then a bigger kid who come over, punch me in the stomach and steal my lunch money-- unfortunately, I can no longer eat for 85-cents.

[BEEP]

I score rather well, despite spending much of my youth listening to loud rock and roll music in a Nissan.

[BEEP]

Next up was the balance test. This involved more electrodes (this time around my eyes!) and me staring a moving red dot. Boy can that dot move! I kept up real good.

[BEEP]

Okay, so these tests wrapped up and I was growing more comfortable in the roll of Northern-Brooklyn's Guinea Pig, and yet the prospect of a drug prescription seemed as far off as flying cars and jetpants.

I went back to the lobby (that's thrice for those keeping score), and sat. This time, when my name was called, it was by "The Doctor." I went into his office and he filled me in.

"So it says you have a sore throat," he says while looking at my mouth. "Oh, yeah, that's real nasty. It also says you have a $600 deductible. So what we're going to do is run a bunch of tests on you. You'll have to come back in next week. Once we hit the $600 mark everything is covered, so today we'll do the heart and ears and next week we'll work on the abdomen... are you allergic to anything?"

Penicillin.

"See we're not going to charge you, we let the insurance take care of all that. So if you get a bill from us, just tear it up. Here's a prescription for your throat."

Jumangi!

"But we'll need to see you next week for more tests-- we have to hit that $600 mark. But its good to do this at the beginning of the year, that way you can go wherever you want the rest of the year. You could go to the Mayo Clinic if you want to!"

Wow, a whole clinic made of delicious mayo!?

And then he let me go, and I was on my way. After filling the prescription at the local Duane Reade the whole day cost me a whopping $8.50. Not bad.

But here's the catch: I feel like this deductible nonsense might come back to bite me in the arse. I mean, I still have to pay that $600, right? And if I do, why would I want to go back for more tests... shouldn't I just stop while I'm ahead and pay, maybe a couple hundred? Do I really want to go back next week and get treated to a $600 colonic, on the assumption that it'll save me money over the course of the year?

Yeah, no. I'll play it by ear.

Anyway, it's now Saturday morning, and I'd say that my throat might actually feel worse than it did on Thursday-- but my disposition is much improved. Maybe he gave me the wrong drugs. In any case, I've been working wayyyy too much for someone who is likely sick and was likely contangious (sorry fellow maybe-infected employees).

Tomorrow morning the guys with muscles come (which sounds kind of like the tag line to an all-male-review).

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