When I was about 7 years old, I got poison ivy so bad that my eyes swelled shut. My mom led me to the doctor (as I couldn’t see), who shined lights in my swollen, pus-filled face, making sure I wasn’t blinded. I wasn’t, but there’s nothing you can do for poison ivy, except try to ease the symptoms and wait it out.
Once she realized I wasn’t going to die from this, my mom decided to take pictures. She said she wanted to submit them to “a scientific journal or something” because I looked like such a freak, there had to be some Earth-shattering discovery in store for us. This is perhaps why I’ve never subscribed to any scientific magazine, and when Z brought home an issue of “Popular Mechanics” I began to weep.
Have you ever tried crying when your eyes are swollen shut and leaking pus? It stings, which makes you cry harder. I imagine it’s a lot like pouring acid on yourself, and then doing it again. I smelled like calamine and baking soda and I looked like a blue-ribbon science project. Not like Pabst Blue Ribbon. That would be fine. I mean one of those paper mache volcanoes. I don’t know why teachers keep teaching kids to make those. They’re retarded.
In college, I got poison ivy and immediately rushed myself to the ER. No way was anyone going to photograph me looking like Sloth. Not again.
Baby Ruuuuth?
The doctor didn’t understand my sense of urgency. “This is a big fucking deal,” I sobbed, “What if I go blind?!”
“Well, the rash is on your arms… I guess I don’t see-“
“Yeah? Have you ever really not been able to see? You don’t get it, do you?”
Doc gave me a prescription antihistamine and sent me on my paranoid way.
I haven’t been back to a doctor for anything minor since. They just don’t get it.
That being said, I wish there was special insurance for people like me. People who only go to the doctor when they’re afraid they might be blinded in the near future, rational or otherwise. People who tough out viruses instead of wasting physicians’ time explaining “My snot is sort of a greenish yellow. Do I have a sinus infection?” Normal weight, low-risk people, who occasionally stumble upon very strange injuries.
What we need is a more biased healthcare system. Biased in my favor. To date, I’ve paid hundreds of dollars for health insurance, and I haven’t used it once. If I have the sniffles, I diagnose myself with the sniffles, and carry on with my life.
Some people might suggest that I need “Hazard” insurance, or “Emergency-only,” but that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m never going to fall off a roof, but I might be blinded by a rash or stabbed with a sword or attacked by a wild raccoon whilst eating a Push-Pop. These things don’t technically qualify as “Hazards” or “Emergencies,” because the odds of them happening… well, there aren’t odds.
I would call it “No way on God’s glittering Earth” insurance. NWOGGE. For people like me who don’t get sick, at least, not sick enough to have a doctor tell us we’re sick. People like me who’ve never really broken a bone (well, we’ve never been treated for it).
People like me who don’t get in “freak” accidents. We get in normal, unfortunate binds that happen to get BAD in a hurry.
Think about it, Obama. There’s a market for this.
I have poison ivy on my leg. We’re running out of time.
