Late last Saturday, one of my cats, Presto, slipped while jumping off a soda fountain chair and got her leg caught in it. (Soda fountain chairs were popular from the 1890s up to about 1920 - see The Music Man, set in 1912 - and are made out of extremely heavy steel wire artfully twisted to form legs and backs attached by carriage bolts to a drumhead seat.) She screamed and I ran to help her. This has happened to our cats before, two previous incidents in 20 years. All you have to do is grab the cat and lift her up so her leg comes free.
Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry I didn't take the 15 seconds to do something sensible: put on heavy leather gloves. When I went to lift Presto, she chomped onto my left index finger and hung on. I screamed, she continued to howl and clawed the hell out of my hand, and I finally broke her grip long enough to grab a pair of leather work gloves, put them on , and then extricate her. She was fine. My hand looked like I'd been in a knife fight.
I washed everything with soap and water and followed it up with hydrogen peroxide to boil out any germs. I wrapped up the worst slashes and gouges, and my hand continued to throb.
Sunday morning, my index finger was red and swollen to twice normal size and the rest of my left hand looked like I'd run a cheese grater over it. I wanted to go to the ER, because my doctor does not have Sunday office hours and I couldn't even get him on the phone. Her Imperial Majesty vetoed this, because although in theory this sort of thing is covered by her family health plan, in fact lots of ER stuff is not.
"You're milking this! I'm not going to pay $3,000 because you got a few cat scratches!" She looked up cat bites online and it didn't seem to be a big deal.
Instead of going to the ER to get a tetanus shot and perhaps a scrip for antibiotics and maybe something for the pain, I spent Sunday afternoon soaking my hand in water as hot as I could stand it with a little bleach in it, a treatment I remembered from a foot infection in childhood. (That is, I did this after Princess Whinybitch dragged me along to a local apple orchard so she could take tons of photos of Junior picking apples from my shoulders. She insists on doing this every year and I loathe it. Traffic is a nightmare, parking is worse, and the orchard charges $20 for a bag to put the apples in; you can't bring your own. And the apples aren't as good in quality or variety as what I buy by the quarter-bushel from my regular orchard!) That seemed to ease the pain and slow down or stop any infection. I repeated this on Monday and the swelling started going down.
Now comes the involvement of American medicine.
This morning (Tuesday) I finally got hold of my doctor and told him I needed a tetanus shot, as my last one was in 1999 and they are only good for 10 years. Could I stop by and get it sometime today?
"No. We don't do tetanus shots in the office any more."
"You're kidding."
"No. They are considered vaccines, not preventatives the way they used to be and insurance companies won't pay for it. If you need a tetanus shot, you either have to go to the ER or to the County Health Department."
Knowing that the ER was not an option because of the queer way my wife's health insurance seems to work, I called the County Health Department.
"Tetanus shot? No problem. The next opening we have is 6:15 PM on November 5th."
"Are you serious?"
"Completely. We don't do vaccine clinics but once a month and they fill up fast. You're lucky; this is the last opening in November. Do you want it? Get here 15 minutes early and bring cash, $42, and it's yours."
So I'll be there on the 5th with cash in hand, to get what USED TO BE a routine shot your family doctor would give you, nearly a month after the injury took place.
And people wonder why I am against Obamacare? If something as simple as this in the matter of government health care is this bad now, what do we have to look forward to!
This morning (Tuesday) I finally got hold of my doctor and told him I needed a tetanus shot, as my last one was in 1999 and they are only good for 10 years. Could I stop by and get it sometime today?
"No. We don't do tetanus shots in the office any more."
"You're kidding."
"No. They are considered vaccines, not preventatives the way they used to be and insurance companies won't pay for it. If you need a tetanus shot, you either have to go to the ER or to the County Health Department."
Knowing that the ER was not an option because of the queer way my wife's health insurance seems to work, I called the County Health Department.
"Tetanus shot? No problem. The next opening we have is 6:15 PM on November 5th."
"Are you serious?"
"Completely. We don't do vaccine clinics but once a month and they fill up fast. You're lucky; this is the last opening in November. Do you want it? Get here 15 minutes early and bring cash, $42, and it's yours."
So I'll be there on the 5th with cash in hand, to get what USED TO BE a routine shot your family doctor would give you, nearly a month after the injury took place.
And people wonder why I am against Obamacare? If something as simple as this in the matter of government health care is this bad now, what do we have to look forward to![/QUOTE]
It seems there is already a problem being caused by the insurance companies. but god forbid any blame be placed on them. they won't cover a $42 tetanus shot, a trip to the ER may cost $3000, but hell no, we will not accept a system where everyone pays in. NO WAY.
and before you say it, no I do not worship Obama. I think at best he will be a terrible disappointment. at worst he will be more of the same. Bush was so bad it allowed obama to be elected. Obama will probably be so bad, god only knows who will look like a good bet in 2012.
__________________ A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it an appearance of being right-Thomas Paine
Last edited by petrol; 10-14-2009 at 02:00 AM.
Reason: clear up the quote part.
OK, Scottish Highland version (Socialised Healthcare, British NHS)
Cut to ribbons by the cat.
Option 1: Daytime: Phone local doc's surgery, told appointments are full, but if I want to come along and wait, he'll see me at the end of his appointments. Treatment tetanus shot stitches & antibiotics, Cost = £4 ($6.40 for antibiotics course)
Night-time: Call local doc's surgery's number; get redirected to NHS24 (out of hours system), speak for ages to nurse/medic, decide if it's worth a doctor call out or it can wait until next day normal hours; if decided it's urgent, on-duty doctor will call at your house & treat you, tetanus shot/stitches/antibiotics. Cost = ZERO
Option 2; Anytime. Go to local ER at nearest hospital, after triage, wait until doctor available to treat you, get tetanus shot, stitches & antibiotics. Cost = ZERO.
And some of you guys are against that???
__________________
How can I 'Soar with the Eagles' when I'm working with such 'Turkeys'!
I'm against even outrageously higher to pay for some welfare trash or crackhead to beat the system once again off of my dollar when I do the responsible thing and provide healthcare to my family. I can get anything done and if I spen 1 grand in a year it caps and is 100% covered until the end of the fiscal year. At worst 1 grand vs socialized healthcare where the employers taxes go up driving my wages into the shitter making it damn near impossible to expand small buisness and create jobs in an economy at 10% unemployment and about 15% actual unemployment if you count the small buisness owners and contractors who have gone under and dont qualify for unemployment benefits. Who is gonna pay for our helthcare when no one is working?
