For the über-Road Warriors - those who spend their lives on the road

Yet another useful tip from our guest blogger, Greg Wesson.

I am sitting at my desk, squinting through half-closed eyes at my computer.  Rick, one of employees at the client I am working for in New Jersey approaches.  I look up, and Rick recoils.  "Greg, your eyes are really red."

I nod at the comment.  "I know.  They are very itchy too.  I looked up my symptoms on the internet..."

"...what did people do when they got sick before the internet?" Rick interjects.

"I don't know," I reply.  Much like ATMs, remote controls or cellular phones, it's becoming hard for me to remember what life was like in the dark ages before.  Webmd identified my likely affliction to be conjunctivitis (pink eye), a bacterial infection of the white part of the eyeball.  I tell Rick the diagnosis.

"You should see a doctor," Rick suggests.

That's a great idea, and one that I have already thought of.  "I have an appointment for Friday when I am back in Toronto," I tell Rick.

"But today is Wednesday.  You can go to the clinic just around the corner," he suggests helpfully.

One of the great things about traveling on business is the fact that my employer provides travel health insurance to cover me when I am away from home.  Or at least that's what I thought until June 18th of 2004.  I was at a client site in Atlanta, Georgia, feeling sleepy.  I thought a shot of caffeine would wake me up, so I took a big gulp from my bottle of Diet Coke. The bottle had been sitting on my desk for about an hour and went down my throat as a warm flood. It hit my esophagus, and suddenly I felt as if someone was trying to pull apart my rib cage. I had a pain in my chest like heartburn, only the worst heartburn I had ever had. 

I leaned forward, trying to catch my breath. My chest continued to burn. Suddenly the world started to close in around me, my peripheral vision disappearing into white cloudiness. The tunnel closed.

The doctor would later explain that I had suffered from an esophageal spasm, when I took the gulp of Coke, all the muscles in my food pipe contracted at once causing intense pain.  The pain caused my blood pressure to drop, and I passed out.  Upon passing out, my conscious brain was no longer in charge of my body, and so it lurched forward and hit hard against the desk.

I woke up a few minutes later bleeding from my forehead.   With the symptoms of chest pain, passing out and a head contusion, I felt a trip to the hospital would be best.  First I called my health insurance company back in Canada to figure out what to do about payment.  "Just pay for the treatment, and submit the receipts when you get back to Canada," they advised.  Sounded easy.

I went to the hospital.  The doctor gave me an EKG, pronounced me healthy, gave me a tetanus shot and discharged me.  The bill came to $US 340.  I paid by Visa, expecting a quick turn around on the payment from my insurance company.

That expectation was wrong.  6 months later, after a rejected claim without explanation, 2 calls to the call center to understand that I needed to submit a claim to the government of Ontario health plan first, a lost cheque, a re-issued cheque with no details, another couple of calls to the call centre and a final applications for total payment, I finally got all $US 340 back.  It isn't much money for me, but I kept imagining what would have happened if I had a $US 10,000 hospital bill!  I vowed then never to get sick again away from home.

Unfortunately, getting sick isn't always in our control.  Back in the present day, and I am in New Jersey with pink eye.  I look at a few different sites on the internet about pink eye.  I'm not likely to die or lose my eyesight if I put off treatment for 2 days until Friday.  So when Rick suggests going to the clinic in New Jersey, I decline.  I'd rather squint through red, itchy eyes for a couple of days than go through trying to file another insurance claim.