Hooray Insurance

The summer I turned 21, I sprained my ankle pretty badly. Due to a horrific combination of alcohol, stilettos, and old ballerina instincts, I attempted to leap over a group of people who were between me and the bathroom. I did not properly land the grand jete and was subsequently carried to my room. Having grown up dancing, I was no stranger to sprained ankles, so I wrapped it, iced it, kept it elevated, and mostly got on with my life.

But a week later it wasn't even beginning to feel better. I knew I had to get it looked at by a doctor. This presented a problem. It's not that I wasn't insured, but I was insured by through dad who lived in Colorado while I was spending my summer in California. I couldn't find a single doctor in network; even the urgent care wouldn't see me. I finally spent a long and boring afternoon in the ER only to learn that my ankle wasn't broken. All I could do at that point was wait for it to heal on its own.

It's probably no surprise that I continue to re-injure this ankle on a fairly regular basis.

Flash forward to this past week, when I hurt my knee thanks to a poorly executed squat at the gym.

Like past injuries, I wrapped it, iced it, and assumed that it would eventually get better. But Kevin insisted I go see a doctor because knee injuries can be really bad. I'd neglected to actually find a primary care physician since moving to Virginia, so I also had to set up a new patient appointment somewhere. It turns out that this was all super easy, and I was able to schedule everything for Thursday afternoon.

My knee oscillated between feeling better and worse, mostly being fine in the morning and getting worse as the day progressed. In the days leading up to my appointment I became convinced that I had seriously hurt myself and was doing my best to not move my knee at all. By the time I got to the doctor's office, I was fretting over the possibility of surgery.

My doctor determined that I had likely torn a ligament and relayed this information like it was no big deal. She referred my to a physical therapist and told me that I needed to start using my knee instead of just keeping it wrapped and still. I'm now on an Advil regimen to deal with the pain instead of trying to prevent the pain from happening at all.

I start physical therapy next week, and I'm hoping it doesn't take too long to go through it all. The best part is that I don't think I'll need to pay out of pocket for any of this. There was no copay at the doctor's office, and I don't think there will be one for the physical therapy either, which is nice. Even if I do need to pay, I doubt it will be much. I'm really glad that I have health insurance and will be able to have this injury treated properly. Maybe now my knees won't give out completely when I'm 50.