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I Am So Popular: The Case Of The Bloody Stool
Like me, my roommate is uninsured. Lately, she’s been having gastrointestinal problems, to the effect that— sorry if you’re reading this during lunch— she’s been producing bloody, runny stools several times per day. It’s an ailment that has plagued her off and on for years. But the high cost of medical attention meant, until recently, skipping doctor’s visits and instead experimenting with home remedies, like eating canned pumpkin and hoping for the best.
The other day, I broke down and called a doctor on her behalf, managing to arrange for a home visit. See, my roommate also suffers from pretty serious anxiety and office visits leave her trembling, another factor that kept her from getting checked out sooner. While I was lucky to find someone to come to the house, this arrangement was not without drawbacks. For starters, we had to keep several stool samples in the refrigerator so the doctor would have something to take with her and analyze.
Technically, shit is food. But it’s processed food, nothing you should eat a second time, and therefore nothing you really want to see in the fridge. Not a lot skeeves me out, but there are a couple of things I am completely opposed to in this world, one being eating bananas in the bathroom and the other being storing containers of feces next to the lettuce. I sucked it up though, knowing my roommate’s health trumped whatever ick-issues I hold regarding chilled poop.
Another requirement for our house call was that I had to set up an examining table, as the doc does not carry a portable one. I rigged an old, pressed-wood folding table, upon which I placed a rag rug. I set it up in the backyard, which didn’t afford much privacy but promised the best possible lighting— my god aren’t these sunny days of late just fantastic?!
When the doctor got here, I helped my roommate up on the table, and held her and spoke soothing words, trying to ease her through a rectal exam. Now, I know some of y’all might dig anal probing, and that is your business, but when it comes to extracting joy from such penetration, I think you increase your odds of pleasure by incorporating elements of ambience, such as candlelight, Barry White’s Greatest Hits CD, and lots of lubricant.
We did not have any of these things at our disposal, so I understood completely my roommate’s nervous, full body contraction upon experiencing this in-through-the-out-door activity. I stroked her head and consoled her, sotto voce, letting her know what a good job she was doing, and how it was almost over. I also sent her messages telepathically, things I dared not speak aloud, lest I make the doctor uncomfortable. From my mind to hers, I let her know that if she just hung in there, soon we could snuggle together in my bed, her little head ensconced in my mighty bosom.
The cost of the home visit was $164, a bargain in this day and age of the $500 hospital-issued BandAid. This price even included a magical powder I am sprinkling on my roommate’s food in the morning, as well as a good long discussion about nutrition, and a chat about the need (or not) to keep shots up to date. Discovering the problem was easily dealt with, I kicked myself for not calling sooner, but I also understood my own hesitation in pushing for a diagnosis until now.
The main reason for my delay was fear. With all due apologies to my young, hot domestic partner Warren, and my beloved son, The Amazing Henry, I confess there are days when I look at my roommate and can’t think of another soul I love as intensely as her. Okay, maybe it’s a three-way tie. But of everyone in the world I know, she has been the most consistent friend I’ve had, the most present creature, the most unconditionally adoring, the most loyal.
When I was going through my last divorce, she stayed by my side 24/7, waiting in the car when I had to go to work, holing up with me in a shitty extended stay hotel while I waited to move into a new place, curling up beside me night after night, looking at me with just the right amount of worry when I cried and cried. We have logged thousands of miles walking together over the years. She is a fantastic listener. And not once has she said a word to me about some of the dumber choices I have made in my life. Her love and adoration are palpable, and they are priceless. I cannot imagine life without her.
So the fear I speak of, rooted in my worst-case-scenario mind, was that the doctor would announce my roommate had stomach cancer, and only had a month left to live without treatment. What would I do in such a case? Take out a second mortgage and get her chemo? Assist her in a swift and painless death? The former option seemed over the top. The latter struck me as impossible— I think, had her diagnosis been terminal— my own selfish need for her would’ve left me unable to put her down, even if that was the most compassionate alternative.
I’m glad I don’t have to make such radical choices, beyond relieved that likely I can ease her symptoms and prolong her life simply by introducing beets into her diet and upgrading her dry food to a ridiculously expensive brand that has oatmeal in it. But this whole episode also caused concern on another level.
Recently, I applied for group insurance through a professional organization to which I belong. I was trying to procure a plan that, like so many insurance plans, totally fucking sucks donkey cock. I would pay $165 a month into a pool, in exchange for a $2500 deductible and several clauses indicating that the things I might actually need covered (things I’d had issues with in the past) would be excluded. Really, what I was hoping to accomplish was the establishment of a safety net so that, should I start squirting out bloody stools of my own, and should these indicate something more threatening than whipworms or colitis, I’d have some hope of prolonging my life, a shot at chemo and radiation if I needed it.
My application was shot down via a vague email promising a more detailed explanation for denial was on the way. While I waited, I wondered what their grounds for refusal were, and thought maybe I should’ve lied more on my application re: some so-called pre-existing condition. Was it that I’d had therapy? Lady parts surgery? Bursitis? Nope, nope, and nope. In the end, Blue Cross refused coverage because I have arthritis. In one toe. Why I even told them about that, I don’t know. But I spoke the truth, and the truth cost me access to an emergency plan.
I’m hoping that, should the day come when I need a anal probe or some other type of exam, my vet will be willing to do for me what she did for my roommate. I will gladly drop drawers and hop on a folding table in the backyard and eagerly wrap my sphincter around her rectal thermometer. I will pay her handsomely if she will share with me some whipworm powder or any other concoction she might have to help heal me.
Barring that option, I have to wonder about my future without insurance. Seriously— if cancer arrives (and my body has shown a propensity for this, having already produced on malignant tumor)— do I just accept my uninsured fate and faux-nobly say, “It’s okay, this must just be my time to die”?
I kind of like the martyresque possibilities of that, but am pretty sure my affection for the idea lies in fantasy. It is our nature to fight for our lives, particularly when our lives are imminently threatened.
I hope I don’t ever have to test out this “No, no, it’s okay, I’ll just go ahead and die,” theory I entertain about receiving a terminal diagnosis. But the way things are these days, when even being willing and able to pay for insurance doesn’t mean I can get it, the possibility looms frighteningly large.
Spike Gillespie hates the insurance companies and all the assholes in congress who can’t get their shit together re: health care coverage. She has started the blog I Can’t Get Insurance to share tales of health care bullshit. Please email your stories to spikegillesie@gmail.com. She also blogs for KnitBuzz, JetBlue, and her own damn self.
