So.....

[fatman]

How much oney would universal health care have saved with 1 simple blood pressure test, now look at the consequences of no preventative medicine

IF YOU ARE 25 OR OLDER, HAVE YOUR FUCKING BLOOD PRESSURE CHECKED! Do it at least once every six months! Otherwise you risk winding up like me!

(Please forgive me my typos, because I can barely read my laptop screen even when I put it right up in my face.)

So I'd been sick a bit lately with random flu-like symptoms and I ignored it because I'm a know-it-all and I know everything. I don't have medical insurance so any visits to a doctor will cost $Texas, but I didn't think to buy any diagnostic equipment to check things out for myself. So here I am at 34 years old with absolutely no idea what shape my body is in. The "flu" was really my last warning, but I didn't even know it. Why should I talk to a doctor? I'd be an idiot to risk spending a few thousand dollars for a case of the flu, right?

WRONG. Almost literally dead wrong. (There's plenty of other reasons I'm an idiot.)

It's Easter Sunday. I get home from dinner at my boss's place and I feel like hell. Surely it was the food, right? I'll wait it out.

Monday morning I show up at work and realize I can no longer read my computer screen. My vision is blurry, my left eye is "off" and my right eye is useless. A huge blurry blob is all I can see from my right eye. This was the first time I was scared. Sudden vision changes mean diabetes, right? I really don't want to be diagnosed with diabetes. I hate needles. (I really really hate needles. I have a needle phobia. I can't even see them on TV.) I'll wait it out and see if it goes away.

Tuesday morning I call my boss and tell him I can't work today. This is a rare event. I very rarely take sick days. He expresses concern and tells me to go to a hospital. I tell him I can't afford it, don't want the diagnosis, I know everything and I can manage it myself. I AM A FUCKING IDIOT, but it's too late now anyway. I sleep all day. Nothing changes. I still feel like hell.

Wednesday rolls around. I call in sick again. I have never used two sick days in a row. My boss tries to convince me to go to the hospital again, but I refuse. I realize I haven't shit in three days. I can't keep any food down. I eat very little, and throw that up a few hours after eating it. This is just the flu, right? I can make it through this. Be a man!

And so a week passes. No food stays down. I drink water and mint tea. Laxatives do nothing to get my bowels started. I run a fever and have chills. My mouth tastes like nasty chemicals. My vision gets worse. My boss and my mother both beg me to go to the hospital. I refuse. Surely it will improve if I wait. I barely sleep and shuffle back and forth from the bathroom and bedroom.

Monday arrives. I can no longer control my body temperature. I can barely walk. I spend 4 hours in the shower, running water to try to break the fever. (Good thing water is part of my rent!) I puke everything I attempt to eat or drink. This is the worst I've ever felt in my entire life. Maybe I should go to a doctor after all.

And so it came to pass that Monday morning, fully 7 days after my symptoms appeared, I finally decide to go to the hospital. It's a good thing I did, because at this point death was only hours away. I would have died alone in my apartment.

The hospital is a couple blocks up the road. My mother arrives and drives me to the ER entrance. I feel this is overkill, but I no longer have the will to object. I sit in the ER waiting area and contemplate lying down on the floor. After a short wait they triage me in. My blood pressure is 240 over something. The person doing the triage is visibly disturbed.

I am admitted to the ER and an IV is put in my arm. Blood is drawn out for analysis. They rush me to the MRI to see how bad the stroke was, but the MRI shows no evidence of a stroke. A vision test has dismal results. The blood tests come back loaded with toxins and poisons. My kidneys have completely failed. A normal person's creatinine count is around 1. A person on dialysis can go up to around 6. Mine is 17. I am rushed to the ICU.

Several days of investigation followed. My kidneys are so shriveled the ultrasound operator had problems finding them. Blood pressure medicine is pumped by IV to try bringing my blood pressure under control. I writhe in pain from gas and bloating. A catheter is installed in my chest for dialysis, and dialysis is started immediately afterward. My first dialysis run started while I was still unconscious from the surgical anesthetic. I felt horrible afterward. You know that tingling feeling you get when you sleep on an arm or a leg and block the blood flow? My entire body felt like that.

The doctors finally came back with their verdict. My blood pressure had been high for years before the event, but I didn't know. It slowly knocked out my kidneys, which drove my blood pressure higher. When my kidneys failed, probably around Easter Sunday, my blood pressure went on a massive spike and literally blew holes in my retinas. The eye damage is permanent. The doctors are still checking if it's degenerative. If the damage is high enough or in the right places, my vision will slowly worsen until I go blind.

I ended up spending 10 days in the hospital. The bills for this are astounding. My savings don't cover even a quarter of it. I have to undergo dialysis 3 days each week. This plus my eyes being blown out means I can no longer work. My boss is sympathetic, but he can't afford to pay me to do nothing. I have to move back to my mother's house and go on disability.

My dialysis is going to cost $120,000 a year. I have no idea how to even begin trying to pay that amount of money. The taxpayers are going to wind up covering it. I hardly feel worth it.

All it would have taken is a $50 blood pressure monitor 3-5 years ago to detect this before it became a problem. One trip to a doctor would have gotten me the blood pressure meds to stop it. Just a few hundred dollars would have covered the whole thing.

Don't wind up like me. Have your blood pressure checked, or buy a monitor and do it yourself. The doctors referred to high blood pressure as "The silent killer", and it came damn close for me. Even if I had gone to the hospital on Monday when my vision changed, it was too late. By the time the symptoms show up you are already fucked. If you don't detect it before the symptoms appear, it will kick your ass.

[Pudfark]

No offense intended Fats.

That fella could'a walked into damn near any Pharmacy sat down in
the chair...with the "FREE" blood pressure machine and checked himself out.
He didn't.

Yeah, undiagnosed/untreated high blood pressure can/will cause all of those
problems, he complained about. Most folks are totally unaware of the "signs"
of high blood pressure. He fecked himself, all by himself. Now, he's gonna feck
the "system", because he didn't take responsibility for himself. Yeah, it happens everyday, everywhere...not just here.

ObamaCare ain't free. No more, than our "current system" is free.
What is ignored?
Indigent health care. It's worked here for years. We all pay/have paid for it.

I don't feel sorry for that guy, one bit. Meaning, I don't care any more for him,
than he did himself. I resent, having to "share" in the cost of his medical treatment. Though, involuntarily, I will pay for it.

The good news about all of this?
He knows who to blame.
Bottom line...it ain't about cost, if ya don't go in the first place.

Old Pudfark sez: "Free Rectal Exams---No Line, No Waiting"