Sickness, Dollars and Sense

Saturday night was a long night. I trudged up to bed around midnight, my body and brain fighting to figure out if it was really nearly lunchtime or bedtime. (Third shift work schedules really screw with your biorhythms.) No sooner had my eyes closed and I was on the verge of sleep, I heard crying coming from Mira’s room. I went in and she was clutching her belly, crying “My bewwy huwts!!!”

Figuring it was probably just gas, I rubbed her belly and back, but she then asked if she could come into my room. Aaron had fallen asleep on the couch, so I agreed and brought her in. She lay in bed with me for about ten minutes before deciding she felt better and went back to her room. I again tried to focus on the inside of my eyelids and aimed for sleep.

An hour later, a repeat performance. This time I got her up and had her try using the potty. (Did I mention we’re potty training? No? Well, we’re POTTY TRAINING! A whole year and a half earlier than Cordy, thank goodness!) Again it didn’t seem to help much, and she eventually went back to bed.

Two hours later, the crying startled me awake. This time it sounded more urgent. I went into her room to see her sitting in a corner of her bed, pointing to the center and saying, “I made a mess! I sowwy! I soooo sowwy!” As my eyes adjusted to the light, and my nose adjusted to the assault on it, I realized she had vomited and was covered in it herself. Poor kid – she’s sick and all she can do is think I’m mad at her for making a mess. You’d think I was a clean freak.

I carefully lifted her out of bed, making sure to avoid her stuffed pink polar bear (which she made sure to tell me that she was careful to NOT get vomit on her prized stuffed animal!), stripped her down and put her in the bath. While she soaked, I cleaned up the mess, remade her bed, and got the washer started. Then I cleaned her up, got her dressed and put her to bed. Mira seemed to feel better after that, and I hoped it was over.

Sunday was a typical day for her. She ate just fine, even though we were cautious at first, she played, and she continued to say, “My bewwy doesn’t huwt now!” Sure, I was exhausted from barely sleeping all night, but she seemed better, so I couldn’t complain too much. It was probably just a virus passing through quickly.

Then Sunday night, right at bedtime, it started again: “My bewwy reawwy hurwts!” At this point, I thought Mira was faking it, having figured out yet another way to stall at bedtime and get some extra attention. Aaron – being better slept than me and therefore in a more generous mood – let her rest on the couch and she promptly fell asleep. Faker, I decided.

Aaron carried her back to bed, and I relaxed in my chair to enjoy a little guilty pleasure I call the MTV VMA’s before I had to go to work. But no sooner than Justin Bieber jumped up on stage, the wailing voice of a little girl could be heard from upstairs. (Yeah, Mira, I’m more of a Lady Gaga fan, too.) Aaron went to check on her and soon came downstairs with a pathetic little barnacle clinging to him. She was again crying that her belly hurt.

Aaron tried to put her on the couch again, but this time she didn’t fall asleep. She tossed and turned and wiggled, occasionally wailing in pain. At this point, I was starting to think it wasn’t an act. But it made no sense – how could she be so sick the night before, then perfect all day long, and now very sick again? That little voice of motherly worry started to build in my mind.

I barely saw Taylor Swift’s performance, because by that point the wailing had reached a fever pitch. Aaron tried to pull Mira into his lap on the floor, but she pushed him away and stumbled over to where I was sitting in the recliner. No longer the stoic doubter, I accepted her into my lap and let her curl herself into me, even knowing I only had five minutes or so until I had to leave for work. She continued to cry, and I asked her to show me where her belly hurt. She placed a chubby hand over her entire belly-button area.

I gently pushed on her belly, trying to remember what to feel for in a three year old, but my nursing skills were falling short. She wailed as I touched her abdomen, constantly shifting around in an attempt to find some relief from whatever was hurting her.

In those moments, as I tried to distract her by pointing out Lady Gaga was on stage accepting an award, real worry invaded my mind. What if this wasn’t just a bug? What if she was really sick?

We don’t have health insurance at the moment. My job is a contractor position and Aaron was laid off in May. My agency’s health plan was nearly half of my salary for a $4000 deductible, and COBRA cost even more. I make too much to be covered on any state insurance plan for children, and the private market? Yeah, well, let’s just say they don’t want to cover our family. I don’t even have paid sick time. If I need to miss a day, I don’t get paid for it. We are the ones “stuck in the middle” making too much to qualify for any help and too little to not worry about the costs.

So in that moment, as I became my own personal WebMD and pondered if Mira had a blockage or if her appendix might burst at any moment, I was also forced to calculate in my head if it was worth taking her to the hospital if she didn’t get better. At what point would the risks outweigh the hefty financial hit we’d face? Just the ER charge alone would be crippling, without even considering costs of any tests or x-rays.

At that point, Mira’s wails took on a new pitch, drowning out the TV entirely, and as I clutched her tight, with Aaron kneeling next to the chair and rubbing her back, I felt the tears in my eyes. Her health was coming down to money. I felt like I was being forced to decide how sick she had to be before we could risk going broke. And I wanted to scream right along with her, wail at how idiotic and unfair our health insurance system is, and sob that any parent should be forced to think like this, to feel this helpless in the shadow of illness and dollar bills balancing on an enormous scale.

And right then Mira vomited all over me. Twice. The silence was shocking to us all.

That sweet little girl then took one look at me, completely covered in more vomit than I thought possible to come out of such a small person, and said, “Mommy, I so sowwy I got you messy. You still wuv me?”

For the moment all of my fears and worries were gone as I stroked her hair and assured her that of course I still loved her and everything was OK. She still didn’t feel well, but the crying had stopped as she was suddenly more concerned about me. (And seriously, I’m really not obsessed with being neat. Sure, I don’t like being covered in vomit, but I doubt anyone does.)

Mira still isn’t well, but I’m less worried about appendicitis now and back to my original theory that it’s a virus. And so we continue to wait it out, hoping she gets better soon and we can avoid a costly trip to the doctor or the ER. I’m still mad at the system, though. Angry that we can’t have affordable health insurance because I chose to take a job I love over something I wouldn’t enjoy as much, because Aaron is unemployed, because we have a host of pre-existing conditions that would deny us private insurance.

We’re average Americans. We have a house, we make a middle-class income, we pay our taxes, and we’re trying to get ahead to provide for our daughters. But we’re also forced to worry that the next stomachache that comes along might be more serious. That stomachache could bankrupt us, could take away that house we call home, and that chance at getting ahead we so desperately want and work hard towards. I know we’re not the only ones in this situation, either.

I’m not an economist (nor do I play one on TV), and I didn’t start this post with the intention of going all ranty, but as a mother I can’t understand why anyone would think that basic universal health care is wrong. At this point I’d even be willing to settle for universal children’s health care. No mother wants a price to be placed on her child’s health – so why would you then choose to put a price on the health of someone else’s child?

Maybe the world would be a better place if mothers were running it.