After spending a nice day exploring northeast Oregon, Shae went to bed while I stayed up to work on stuff. At some point after midnight, she woke up with some stomach pain and came out into the living room of the RV we’d booked on Airbnb.
At first we thought that perhaps it was something she’d eaten because the burger she’d ordered for dinner that night was still a little pink inside. The pain got worse and worse though, resulting in her throwing up.
That wasn’t the easiest process – seeing as we were in an RV, the bathroom wasn’t very big.
I figured that throwing up would’ve made her feel better, but her face was still incredibly pale and her pain got even worse. It got to the point where she was writhing in pain on the floor of the living room in between going back and forth to the bathroom to vomit.
The pain was on the right hand side of her stomach which, when Googling the symptoms, suggested that she might have appendicitis. Given how much pain she was in, we were getting concerned that her appendix had ruptured and so wanted to get her some medical attention immediately.
Mad Dash To The Hospital
That was even more problematic than it might usually be because we were in Halfway, OR. That’s a city of ~300 people with only a few stores but nothing resembling a hospital or urgent care facility. I searched online for the nearest medical center and the closest one was a hospital in Baker City, OR which was more than an hour’s drive away.
Knowing that we’d likely be some time, I took our dog Truffles out to go to the bathroom, then we left her in the RV and raced to the hospital. The drive was a little nerve-wracking because I was trying to drive as quickly as I could out of concern for Shae’s health, but the road was very dark and took us through a winding canyon, with wildlife potentially being in the middle of the road. Not to mention the fact that I’d been about to go to bed when Shae got up, so I was pretty tired and trying to keep my eyes open having not had any sleep.
Google Maps had said it should take us just over an hour to get to the hospital in Baker City, but I made it in less than an hour. Thankfully there were no police officers around to pull us over, but I figured that even if they did pull us over, they’d hopefully rush Shae to the hospital first before giving me a speeding ticket!
It was about 3am by the time we reached the hospital and Shae was admitted nice and quickly. We’d assumed it had been her appendix, but the doctor suspected that she had kidney stones. He gave her some kind of medicine which he said would get to work quickly on her pain if it was kidney stones, but sadly 10 minutes later she was still in just as much pain.
The doctor ran more tests and it came back as a problem with her gall bladder, with him advising that it needed to be removed. Although we were glad to finally know what was wrong and how it could be fixed, that wasn’t the end of our problems.
Another Long Drive
The hospital didn’t have a surgeon on call who could perform a gall bladder removal. The nearest hospital that could perform the procedure was in Ontario, OR which was another hour’s drive away.
We don’t currently have health insurance and the doctor gave a ballpark figure of $10,000 for Shae to be transported to the other hospital by ambulance. They’d given her some medication to ease her pain, so we decided to drive there ourselves rather than having to pay $10,000 for an ambulance which would’ve served more as a glorified taxi service seeing as they didn’t expect her to need any treatment along the way.
Thankfully most of that drive was on a highway and the sun was coming up, so it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as our drive to Baker City earlier that night. The pain medication the doctor had given her worked pretty well, so although she was still in some pain, it wasn’t anywhere near as acute as it had been a few hours earlier.
The hospital in Ontario, OR was part of the same organization as the hospital in Baker City. They therefore already had Shae on their system and a private room ready for her when we arrived, so they took her up in a wheelchair following a quick check-in process.
I obviously had the easiest time of the two of us in this whole situation, but it was almost 9am by this point and I was exhausted as I hadn’t gotten any sleep. While waiting for the surgeon to come to talk to Shae, I finally managed to get a 15 minute snooze in.
A Change Of Plans
We now had another dilemma. Shae was going to be having laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery which meant that she wouldn’t have to stay in hospital overnight. This happened on the morning of October 22 and we were due to check out of our Airbnb the following day.
However, it was going to be a two hour drive from Ontario to Halfway which didn’t seem like a great idea after Shae had just had surgery. It seemed an even worse idea to then have a long drive the very next day to Bend which is where we were due to stay next.
I therefore came up with a solution. We’d cancel our hotel in Bend as it had been booked with points and so we could cancel it without penalty up to the day before our stay. Ontario didn’t have many hotels, but I found one we could book for a few nights using points. That way we’d only need to drive five minutes from the hospital to the hotel and Shae could rest up for a few days while we decided what to do next.
This was the best solution, but it came with its own problems. We’d left Truffles in the RV in the early hours of the morning and it was now 9:30am. Shae hadn’t had her surgery yet, but it was going to be several hours before her surgery and eventual discharge from the hospital.
We didn’t want to leave Truffles unable to go to the bathroom for most of the day, plus we still had all our stuff laying about the RV that had to be packed up and moved to Ontario. We therefore decided that it would be best for me to drive back to Halfway, pack everything up and drive back to Ontario to pick Shae up after she’d had surgery.
Although that was the best option, it was far from ideal. This was Shae’s first time having surgery and me driving back meant she’d have to go through that by herself. I wasn’t scared about her having surgery, but I also wouldn’t normally choose to leave her alone in that kind of situation.
It also meant a four hour round trip drive for me with no sleep, so I stopped off at a gas station on the way back to stock up on Red Bull. Apparently my 15 minute snooze and the Red Bull was enough for me to power through without needing to take a nap at the RV before heading back to pick up Shae.
Successful Surgery
While I was gone, Shae had her surgery. Straight after she’d had her procedure, her surgeon called me to give me an update which I appreciated. She let me know that everything had gone smoothly with Shae’s gall bladder removal and that they were now just waiting for her to wake up from her anesthetic. She also shared some information about her aftercare, medication she should and shouldn’t take, etc.
The timing of everything ended up working out surprisingly perfectly. After Shae woke up from her surgery, she kept me updated with when she expected to be discharged. Although the surgery had been successful, the hospital wanted to ensure that she could eat food and not have any issues, so it was still going to be a little while before I could pick her up.
This gave me enough time to run some laundry, pack everything up, cancel our original hotel and book our next one before driving the two hours back to Ontario. I’d originally planned to get us checked in at the hotel before picking Shae up from the hospital, but she texted just before I got to Ontario to say that she could be discharged, so I went straight to the hospital to pick her up.
We then headed to the hotel and got checked in. Shae was grateful to be able to continue resting up in bed, while I was grateful to finally be able to take a long nap!
From Having No Health Insurance…
While having to have emergency surgery isn’t something anyone ever wants to happen, you want it to happen even less when you don’t have health insurance! That’s the position we found ourselves in, but it was a good learning experience in the meantime.
The reason we didn’t have health insurance is due to my – sadly mistaken – understanding of how ACA premiums work. Before setting off on the road trip, I’d looked at how much it would cost to take out insurance and it seemed to be prohibitively expensive. Our income seemed to be too high to receive any discount on premiums, so between premiums and the high deductible payable on the cheapest plans, we were looking at having to pay $15,000-$20,000 per year before any kind of medical treatment would be reimbursed. Even then, with us not living in our state of domicile (Florida), we would’ve always had out-of-network costs that wouldn’t have been covered by a plan even if there was no deductible.
Although neither of us are in the best shape, we are fairly healthy and prior to Shae’s surgery neither of us had any significant medical issues. We knew it was a gamble to not have health insurance, but the expense seemed excessive too. This worked out fine for the first four years of our road trip as we’ve had very few medical expenses, none of which would’ve been covered anyway under whichever ACA plan we’d have taken out due to the deductible.
…To Getting It Next Year
It turns out that we wouldn’t have had to pay expensive premiums on an ACA plan after all. When getting quotes on Healthcare.gov, I’d been inputting our gross income as our income. However, when checking the site after Shae’s surgery I noticed that ACA premium credits are calculated based on your AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) which, for us, is much lower than our gross income due to our self-employed business expenses.
That means that we appear to be eligible for credits that would cover our entire healthcare premiums which I wish I’d realized much earlier than now! Open enrollment has started for 2022, so it looks like we’ll be getting health insurance again from the start of next year – woohoo! We’ll still have a high deductible and we won’t be be able to get reimbursement for regular medical expenses due to the deductible and the fact that we won’t be using approved medical care providers in Florida.
However, we will be covered for emergency medical expenses (like Shae’s gall bladder surgery) when not in Florida as all ACA plans have to provide that coverage. That’ll limit our own cost in the future in the event something similar happens, so that’ll be some kind of peace of mind.
How Much The Gall Bladder Surgery Cost
We just received the bills for Shae’s surgery last night and it’s a little better than we were expecting. When Googling to check how much the average gall bladder surgery cost, it seemed as though we were looking at a bill of ~$20,000.
When totaling the three bills we received, they came to ~$17,000. Although that’s obviously an expense we’d much rather have not had, we’re grateful that it wasn’t more expensive and that Shae is now doing much better post-surgery and won’t have gall bladder issues in the future.
Christian says
I’m glad that things turned out as well as could reasonably be expected and that Shae is on the mend. Thanks for sharing.
stephen says
Thanks!
ShoNuffHarlem says
Your should be able to negotiate the bills. Especially if you disclose your income to the hospital
And use insurance agents for the exchange! Never become your own expert government makes it too complicated
stephen says
Thanks for the tips 🙂