I Woke Up in the Hospital

There have been times in my life when health insurance seemed like a complete waste of money.  But then there was the time when it literally saved me from financial ruin.

It was the summer of 2011 and up to that point I was the picture of perfect health.  I had never so much as broken a bone.  Health insurance for me was an added expense I just didn’t think I needed…until I woke up in the hospital.

While I was sleeping that night I had a seizure completely out of the blue.  After a 911 call, I was taken by ambulance to the local emergency room.  I was given some tests and some medication and sent home to rest.  A few hours later I woke up again, this time in an ambulance, on my way to the hospital again.  I  had another seizure.

I won’t bore you with the details but after tens of thousands of dollars worth of ambulance rides, CT scans, EEG tests, MRI’s, and many visits to neurologists, I am fine and once again in seemingly perfect health.

That’s me, hooked up to an EEG machine.

Of course my previously “unnecessary” health insurance covered a huge portion of those expenses.  I was certainly in no financial position to be able to pay tens of thousands of dollars to doctors and hospitals on my own.  I finally began to understand the power of health insurance.

Although I wish I didn’t have to experience that summer of 2011, it did spark a passion inside of me to make sure others understood the importance of health insurance as well.  Young people especially are prone to go without it.  It’s a nice benefit when they are on their parent’s policy but once the expense becomes their own, too many young people decide it’s not worth it.

Please don’t go without it.  There are ways to make sure you are only buying what you need and to make health insurance fit within your budget.  I would love to help.