Rite of passage

June 25, 2013

I adore a juicy story yet I don’t always have one in me. Where do they go, is it something that leaks out slowly, like a soft balloon or a fart that zips out without warning, after a big bean burrito?

Recently I was thinking about a medical bill that went array when I was in college. The insurance company refused to cover the ER incident and demanding letters from the hospital began to pile up. One would come on Monday and three on Thursday, by Saturday I was a wreck and sweated while going to the mailbox. I didn’t have the life experience to handle the stress, to be savvy enough to address the issue with the billing department nor struggle through the lengthy insurance policy, if I could even find the damned thing. The insurance and subsequent hospital representatives were theoretically   more available than they are now, but certainly not willing to honor the implied agreement. I had severe symptoms and got treatment and felt better because of it but could not prove I fell into the “Allowance” category.

The collections company representatives began phoning. The apes called at all hours. They were relentless. None of them would reveal their identity if I didn’t happen to answer the phone. It is a suspiciously personal matter (like no one knew I was in trouble with that kind of a response?) and only Paula Hill could receive the message. It is uncanny how something as simple as a medical challenge can turn life upside down. Of course, I avoided the phone as well.

It was finals week, two rigorous jobs took up the majority of my free time, tournaments in intermural sports were consuming, studying took precedence over eating, hashing over term paper topics overrode sleeping. I was a wreck and to top it off, felt shame and indignation that I was not swallowed-up into the broken medical system.  They found me and were going to squeeze $1000 out of me no matter what.

Thank god my mother discovered the bills, stuffed away in a drawer, to hide from myself. She insisted I deal with it, write letters to the hospital and collections agency and fess up. Tell them that I was overwhelmed and want to appeal the charges. I certainly earned below poverty level wages and had been neglectful in letting the correspondence build-up. With my mom staring me down, I had no choice yet was, at the same time, so incredibly relieved to have this great burden lifted from my very existence.

I paid out a nominal amount and everything was wiped from my records. I was a free woman once again, let out into the world to screw up, fall down and make my mother crazy.