Labor Day and Urgent Care...

So you may have seen my health insurance rant about a week ago. To update that, I got health insurance just for me and added my husband to dental and vision because that’s what we could afford. He works part time right now and it’s up to him to either go full time to get benefits, find another job, or we’ll have to pay the insurance tax next year.

But that’s not what this post is about. The point is I just signed up for benefits at the end of August (we just got married so I was eligible). HR told me I could still go to the doctor without my insurance cards, they could look it up with my information/Social until my cards could came in the mail. Okay great, didn’t plan on using them anyway.

Well lo and behold I’m woken up with excruciating pain in my upper back and chest. I had NO idea what was going on. I called my dad who lives with us and deals with backpain all the time. He advised me to take one of his muscle relaxers and try to rest with an ice pack. At the time that sounded reasonable so I did that. It did nothing and I was sobbing uncontrollably. I woke my husband up who worked a mid shift and still needed to be sleeping. He took me to Urgent Care after he mentioned it was probably my pleurisy acting up again. DUH! I can’t believe I didn’t think about that, as soon as he said it I knew he was right. Well a muscle relaxer is not going to help inflamed/irritated lungs.

We get there, they ask for my insurance and I explain the situation. She says she may be able to look it up and to take a seat. She calls me over to tell me she can’t find it and that I’ll need to call Capital Blue and get my member ID. Okay great, easy enough...

It’s Labor Day, every number I called of theirs was closed. 😒 So back home we went. I called my family doctor and got their answering service. I have a history of pleurisy and know my symptoms. They’re always the same: upper back pain, chest pain, and trouble breathing/hurts to breathe. However, the trouble breathing does not happen right away, it usually takes one to two more days for that to start. I told her this and she insisted asking me questions related to a heart attack. I told her it was not and she said, “well since it doesn’t hurt to breathe it’s not pleurisy and you’ll need to wait until tomorrow to come into the office for a proper diagnoses. Take Aleve. If it worsens go to the ER.”

Note - steroids are what they give me to help wih this. It’s not bacterial so antibiotics are not needed. It’s not like I was asking for pain killers here, I am just trying to feel better.

I didn’t go to the ER because there’s no way I’m doing that if they can’t find my insurance.

So I’m stuck in bed miserable. I did find some pain killers from when I had my kidney stone so that helped a lot. Benadryl also seemed to help my breathing. (Of course a few hours after I called my family doctor, my breathing started to become labored.) Not terrible (I’m not dying) but enough to make a difference and hurt when I breathe.

I’m just so sick of this county’s healthcare. It would just be my luck to have benefits and the one day I need to use them, I can’t because it’s a holiday. I know the nurse at the answering service wasn’t trying to be mean or not care, but that’s what it feels like. I just wanted to get an early start on the steroids because pleurisy only worsens, it’s never magically healed itself in my experience.

Feel free to drop your own story regarding healthcare/health/issues below. I guess misery really does love company lol.