From a disaster’s wrath for sure - The Air-War was flooded like the 9th ward

More than one blog per week??!! I know, hold onto your face.

Without going too into things nobody wants to read about, like my personal medical issues, lets just say that I'm finally getting around to enjoying the benefits of having health insurance - by doing something I don't enjoy at all and going to the doctor.

Not only am I one of those people that never goes to the doctor out of some weird sense of things not being a "big deal" I'm also one of those people that went for a long time without the ability to go to the doctor without the promise of crushing bills piling up so I've gotten used to just not taking care of myself with any sort of medical advice or support.
After getting insurance through the job I should have been running in to see a doctor (which I don't even have, I had only been seen when it was either a car accident or a trip to Urgent Care involving a new strain of the Mumps virus. Man, if only that was a joke) - but that was step one: Get a doctor. I thought I had a doctor and then he moved to a different practice so I've been stuck at step one for a while.

The other problem has been an honest fear of finding out what might be wrong. That's the dumbest reason to avoid the doctor I can think of but it's true. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about in that I'm sure I'll live way too long, I'll just have a messed up body.

Lately things have been going wrong enough (things have been 'not right' for a while but have finally reached a level that I'm less comfortable with - which of course only makes my nerves about what I might find out even worse) I've been motivated to get past step one and finally made some appointments and started seeing a few doctors about these problems - all of which come out of the same car accident, I'm completely positive.

Backing up just slightly: I was in a pretty serious car accident a number of years ago. Like a LOT of years ago. I was driving my mother's Silverado pickup that day because I was supposed to be hauling something later and was hit squarely in/under the driver door by a car traveling way too fast, fast enough to actually vault the truck into the air, out of the street and downward into a retaining wall. Had I been driving my own car I would have been reduced to a fine red mist.

In any case, I was driving through a green light one second and the next I found myself looking at the sky across the twisted bench seats (as the driver side of the truck had collapsed and I was looking upward out the passenger window), my first thought was to pull out my phone and dial 911 - my second thought was that I cannot afford an ambulance ride so unless I look down and see bones coming out of my legs I needed to get to a hospital under my own power.
This is sad all by itself.

My call was the first report of the accident, which was also sad since there were several witnesses, all of which sped off.

I climbed up and out of the truck and eventually walked myself over to the paramedics, who were a little surprised to see me up and about. It wasn't until they realized the driver window had been up until my head went through it and the basketball-sized hole in the rear cab window was also from my skull that they made me sit down and gave me a once-over. I still opted to get myself to a hospital (my mother, whose truck I had just wrecked, drove me) and was seen a little later on.

Here's the thing - when you come into the hospital and tell them you don't have insurance (because they conveniently ask before you're treated, not after) you can expect a pretty sub-standard level of "care". I was X-rayed and they didn't see anything that required "emergency treatment" so I was released. The end, until this year when I got insurance again.

it seems the only thing more difficult than explaining to a new doctor that "what brings me here" is a long-ago incident and myriad of problems I've accumulated in a few years of being health-care free - is getting one of them to re-examine or reconsider the conclusions of another doctor, regardless of how lackluster the "care" I got was. Anytime I made mention of my car accident the reply was a quick glance at the chart and a brush off that said 'they didn't note anything so that's not it' and moved on as if this was not worth even considering when looking at my current troubles.

of course, in reality, the lack of any notes means was that I wasn't really "treated" at the time, I was cleared of having life-threatening problems and then bounced. that's NOT the same thing as 'not suffering an injury' but since there was nothing on paper it was as if I was given a thorough checkup and a clean bill of health. And every doctor since then has shown an incredible resistance to entertaining that conversation, even in the face of common sense.

It was not until this week that I was able to not only get seen but also get seen by doctors that acknowledged that a car accident of that kind PROBABLY did some lasting damage and that I was PROBABLY not treated fully since I presented in the ER as not having health insurance. Which gives me some hope but I'm just starting so we'll see if anything can be done or if I've completely screwed myself by years of non-treatment.

Now I actually have "a doctor" and I'm skating that thin line between always being honest with your physician (which only makes sense) and trying not to make her feel like I'm trying to scare the living crap out of her or exaggerating or trying to make things sound worse to get drugs or something (I turned down painkillers and muscle relaxers today, hopefully that will ease her trepidation a bit) but when she asks things like "Your septum breaks to one side, have you ever been hit in the face?" it's difficult to do.

I ended up having to tell her I'd had my face stepped on. I couldn't explain it any better than that and even if I could I wouldn't be able to make it make sense to her. I also couldn't come up with a sensible explanation why I took this long to come in about my problems but at least I'm doing it now, right?

It's a start.