A lot of people ask questions about my accident. And I’m happy to talk at length about any part of the process, from my device detaching from the rope, to the rescue, to being in the hospital, to my physical therapy, to returning (eventually) to the rock, to keeping my spirits high throughout. If you ever have a question, please ask!
A common question I get is, “what has surprised you the most”. I don’t like to get negative, but the answer has to be my experiences within the medical system. Having never had an accident or sickness serious enough to require a hospital stay, you could call me naive. And over the last 17 weeks, I went from feeling that, despite the costs, we probably have one of the best medical systems in the world, to feeling that the issues with our system are so deep that most first-world countries must be doing a better job.
Don’t get me wrong. Every single nurse I’ve had has been extremely kind (except the guy who pushed quite hard, seemingly for sport, directly on my broken heel). Every physical and occupational therapist I’ve worked with has been a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm. Allllmost every doctor has been helpful too. So I’m confident that patient-facing individuals are doing more than their best to help.
But let me tell you two stories, one this week, one next week, that say something about my medical problems…
Story 1: Brace Yourself
When you break your back, you need a back brace. I learned this when a woman dressed in scrubs entered my room just a day or so after my accident. I asked whether this was really necessary, since I wouldn’t be able to stand for what turned out to be over twelve weeks. She cheerfully explained that the brace aids in healing by stretching and straightening your spine, and was fully covered by insurance. Though I was very drugged up, and in a lot of pain, I realized that her demeanor and speech pattern didn’t match that of any of the other medical professionals I’d dealt with. She was a salesperson, dressed like someone with a degree in health care.
But what other options did I have in my current state? I thought about calling in a real nurse in to ask if I could order a brace online and ship it to the hospital, whether there would be another salesperson stopping by to offer me another option, and how this was even legal in the first place (especially considering that covid restrictions limited guests to one per day). But every word I spoke was painful, and every interaction I had was exhausting. So I signed on the dotted line, and hoped she would just leave.
She didn’t.
Radiating glee from having made a sale, she told me that to make sure the brace fit, I’d need to get it underneath me. This involved rolling on my side, an extremely difficult and painful process at the time. My nurse, a very meticulous, thoughtful, and anxious-to-please man, came in to help. When they rolled me and held me on my side, the saleswoman in scrubs pushed directly on my broken ribs, causing a lot of pain and a very rare vocal outburst from me. When they rolled me back down, I put my one unbroken arm up and asked them to stop. In my head, I knew that before they proceeded, I needed to communicate the extent of my injuries, because the salesperson was obviously unaware. What came out was, “my ribs are broken.” The salesperson immediately got extremely defensive, saying “I didn’t put any pressure on any part of you,” and very quickly grabbed her things and stormed out of the room without confirming the fit of the brace.
I never saw her again.
Eventually, when I was able enough to sit up in bed, the nurses and therapists showed me how to put on the brace. I was told that any time I sat up in bed, used my wheelchair, used the bathroom, or took a shower, I needed to put it on. I obeyed these rules for seven weeks.
Then a bill came for $1100. Like most bills, it was not clear what it was for. So I entered the strange combination of letters and numbers into google, and found several pictures of my back brace. The first thing I noticed was that you could find these back braces on ebay for $50, and new braces from retailers for about $400. That’s a pretty big, but oddly expected and accepted, mark-up.
But here is the most troubling part of this story. All of the pictures and manuals that I found online showed me that I wore this overpriced back brace quite incorrectly for seven weeks. The brace needed to be worn much lower on my back, with the straps under my armpits, not over my shoulders like I’d been shown.
So I’d been sold a back brace in my hospital room, while I was in an extremely vulnerable state, by someone camouflaged as a medical professional. Someone who, not knowing the extent of my injuries, caused me a great deal of pain, and, when I tried to communicate this, didn’t listen, but left in a huff. The back brace was extremely overpriced, a practice that causes all of our health insurance costs to rise. And the thing never did any good anyway; in fact, it may have caused harm in the healing of my back.
The primary intent of the medical system was certainly, at one point, patient care. Millions of medical professionals train for years so that they can help people. But a private company’s desire for profit literally invaded my hospital room and did nothing but harm. This profit came at a large cost.
Rhyming Moral: If their scrubs are too clean, they just want your green.
Non-rhyming Moral: Capitalism doesn’t discriminate… or empathize.
I have one more story for you next week. It’s about drugs.