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It could always be worse


It’s been pretty rough around here, but it didn’t start out that way. Recently, we were at the lake with family, considering ourselves lucky that a forecast of showers had turned into sunshine. My husband was having fun tubing, and my oldest even decided to take a ride on the tube. Even though I have to admit that I was hesitant about spending a weekend on a dock at the lake with three non-swimmers, the days that we had there were the stuff of which summer is made.
But then throughout the week after we got back, the girls started getting whiny and clingy and warm and started complaining about their tummies hurting, and my husband noticed that a small area of his knee that had been scraped from tubing started to get tender. We canceled every plan we had made for the weekend and hung out at home in recovery mode. My husband went to the doctor and received a diagnosis of cellulitis and was taking antibiotics with instructions to rest and keep his leg elevated. When he went to the doctor, we found out that our insurance had been terminated due to a misunderstanding with the enrollment process when we were trying to get Roland added to our insurance plan. We spent the next couple of days scrambling to try to remedy the situation to little avail. My husband had to return to the doctor when the infection was not responding to the antibiotics, making things worse.
I was hoping that Monday would roll around and life would be back to normal. The girls were definitely on the mend, but my husband was still in a lot of pain and not seeing a lot of improvement. He returned to the doctor once again and was sent to the emergency room and eventually admitted to the hospital for observation and IV antibiotics. We had to do what was best for him, but the situation was made entirely more stressful due to the fact that we unknowingly did not have insurance coverage. It’s pretty ridiculous to think about how a scraped knee turned into a hospital stay, and an attempt to add your newborn baby to your insurance plan resulted in terminated coverage; this is the stuff of which nightmares are made.
Still, I know it could always be worse. It could be much, much worse. While I’ll gladly take crippling medical debt over more severe outcomes, it doesn’t change the fact that it is just all around unfortunate. It’s so sad to think of my husband sitting there alone in the hospital. I at least have the kids at home with me to keep things in perspective. Roland has been able to experience quite a few dramatic life experiences with this family during the short time we have had him. He doesn’t seem to mind at all though, and he certainly lifts my spirits. He started giggling when I kiss him this week. I guess he knew how badly I would need that joyfulness.

SOURCE:http://www.pnmag.com/blogs/it-could-always-be-worse/